Ultrashort laser pulse has been widely used in various applications. Its parameters, such as the pulse duration and the spectral bandwidth, should be controlled accurately in order to achieve high spatial and temporal resolution, as well as high local field intensity. In this paper, we have proposed a method to trace the propagation of ultrashort pulses through optical systems, especially the complex optics. The approach, in which both the material’s dispersion and optical aberrations are taken into consideration, is developed based on the geometrical ray-tracing combined with wave theories. This method is validated by simulating the propagation of a femtosecond pulse through a specific practical imaging system. As the numerical result shows that the spatial-temporal performances of pulses are influenced greatly by optical elements, the calibration arrangement is employed to compensate for those undesired distortions. The negative dispersion of the optical grisms (the combination of gratings and prisms) is utilized in the calibration process to offset the positive dispersion introduced by lenses. The final result shows effectiveness of the correction.

Date Published: 22 July 2016
PDF: 7 pages
Proc. SPIE 9983, Pacific Rim Laser Damage 2016: Optical Materials for High-Power Lasers, 99830M (22 July 2016); doi: 10.1117/12.2235750

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9983:
Pacific Rim Laser Damage 2016: Optical Materials for High-Power Lasers
Takahisa Jitsuno; Jianda Shao; Wolfgang Rudolph, Editor(s)