Compression of 100-psec laser pulses

Abstract

Optical pulse compression using diffraction gratings has been demonstrated previously for ultrashort pulses (<20 psec). It has not been previously demonstrated for longer pulses because the chirp bandwidth required for a reasonable grating spacing was unattainable. In this letter we report the compression of a 100‐psec pulse by a factor ⩾12, at a grating spacing of 23 m, and with an efficiency approaching the theoretical limits.