Abstract

Many laser plasma interaction experiments with ultrashort laser pulses either require or can significantly benefit from the use of a laser pulse with a temporal profile, which has been optimized for the experiment. Such pulse shapes can be generated at low energy either by modifying the amplitude and /or phase of spectral components of a single laser pulse via a mask in the spectral plane of a grating pair stretcher¹ or by combining laser pulses together.

© 1996 Optical Society of America