Diffraction properties of ultrashort pulsed beams with arbitrary temporal profiles by a volume holographic grating

Abstract

In this paper, the diffraction properties of an ultrashort optical pulse with arbitrary profiles in time diffracted by a volume holographic grating are investigated using the modified Kogelnik coupled-wave theory. Simple analytical expressions for the spectrum and spatial profiles of the transmitted and diffracted beams are obtained. The dependences of the diffraction bandwidth, the Bragg selectivity bandwidth and the total diffraction efficiency of the volume grating on the temporal profiles of the input ultrashort pulse are investigated. For three different temporal profiles, numerical results of diffraction properties are given. It is shown that the temporal shapes of the input pulsed beams have been found to be an important factor in the analyses of the propagation characteristics.