Practical considerations in the construction of pulseshapers for ultrafast spectroscopy
Abstract
Optical pulseshapers play an important role in ultrafast spectroscopic techniques, and are widely implemented in many labs. Most commonly, pulseshapers consist simply of a grating, lens, and mirror with an adjustable slit in the focal plane. Pulseshaping is accomplished by truncating part of the spectrum, often leading to unwanted temporal satellite peaks. A dramatic improvement can be made by replacing the mirror/slit with a mask consisting of an array of microlithographically etched metallic lines for amplitude shaping. Along with phase masks, pulses can be almost arbitrarily reshaped. Here we present a method to computationally design masks. An output pulse can be determined for a given mask by convoluting the beam distribution in the Fourier plane with the mask. By inverting the procedure, a discrete mask pattern can be determined for a desired reshaped pulse. We also discuss practical issues in the design of the pulseshapers. Advantages of spatial light modulators are discussed, and the spectral filtering technique is compared to a recent acoustooptic temporal pulseshaping technique.
- Publication:
-
APS March Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- March 2004
- Bibcode:
- 2004APS..MAR.K1221L