Abstract

Most analyses of the group velocity dispersion (GVD) of the ultrafast geometries used in pulse compressors and shapers rely on the analytical calculations of various segments of the system, e.g., grating pairs, prism pairs, fibers, etc. It is possible to write programs to evaluate the GVD for a number of these devices. However, when collimating lenses with their attendant aberrations, particularly in the presence of spatially chirped pulses, are introduced, the calculation of the group velocity dispersion becomes more difficult. When one considers the variety of usable materials and the number of potentially useful optical geometries, especially with broadband sources, such as the supercontinuum generated from a fiber, the task becomes daunting.

© 2002 Optical Society of America