Linear electro optic effect for high repetition rate carrier envelope phase control of ultra short laser pulses

Abstract

This paper is devoted to analyzing the principle and applications of the linear electro-optic (EO) effect for the control of the carrier-envelope-phase (CEP). We introduce and detail here an original method, which relies on the use of an EO dispersive prism pair in a compressor-like configuration. We show that, by choosing an adequate geometry, it is possible to shift the CEP without changing the group delay (isochronous carrier-envelope-phase shifter) or change the induced group delay without varying the CEP. According to our calculations, when applying an electric field around 400 V/cm to the rubidium titanyle phosphate (RTP) prisms in a double pass configuration (2 × 40 mm total length), one obtains a CEP shift of π rad at 800 nm without inducing a group delay. In contrast, this CEP shift is obtained for an electric field around 1.4 kV/cm in a RTP rectangular slab of the same total length and, in this case, the group delay is of the order of a few fs.