Investigation of spatial chirp induced by misalignments in a parallel grating pair pulse stretcher

Abstract

Spatial chirp induced by the misaligned gratings and mirrors in a parallel grating pair pulse stretcher can significantly affect the performance of the output pulses. Firstly, a detailed analysis about the spatial chirp of the stretched pulses caused by the misalignments has been carried out using the ray tracing simulation method. According to the simulation results, an adjustment procedure has been summarized to accurately calibrate these misalignments. The proposed method has been successfully applied in a home-made chirped pulse stretcher. By measuring the output pulse with an imaging spectrometer, the results show the stretched pulse has a good linear temporal chirp and little spatial chirp, which demonstrates the good adjustment of the stretcher.