Hybrid grating–prism stretcher–compressor system with cubic phase and wavelength tunability and decreased alignment sensitivity

Abstract

A novel stretcher–compressor design for chirped-pulse amplification systems is presented. The stretcher, which incorporates high-groove-density gratings and an intragrating prism pair, is shown to be highly cubic-phase tunable. Using a hybrid stretcher with 2400-line/mm gratings and off-the-shelf prisms, we have demonstrated amplification of sub-100-fs pulses. In addition, this cubic-phase tunability combined with the broadband efficiency of high-groove-density (2000 lines/mm) gratings allows for the possibility of a system that is tunable in wavelength.