Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses

Abstract

We have demonstrated the amplification and subsequent recompression of optical chlrped pulses. A system which produces 1.06 pm laser puke & with pulse widths of 2 ps and energies at the millijoule level 1s presented. The onset of self-focusing of intense light pulses limits the amplification of ultra-short laser pulses. A similar problem arises in radar because of the need for short, yet energetic pulses, without having circuits capable of handling the required peak powers. The so-lution for radar transmission is to stretch the pulse by passing it through a positively dispersive delay line before amplifying and transmitting the pulse. The echo is compressed to its original pulse shape by a negatively dispersive delay line [ 11. We wish to report here a system which transposes the technique employed in radar to the optical regime, and that in principle should be capable of producin