Compact optical grating compressor.

Optical grating compressors are routinely used in high-power chirped-pulse amplification laser systems to create ultrashort laser pulses with peak power up to the petawatt level. However, compressors with a large dispersion require a large distance between the compressor’s elements that limits the size of the laser system and makes their use impractical outside of the lab and particularly on moving platforms.

A novel design for a grating-based optical pulse compressor is presented. This compressor provides a large group delay dispersion while keeping the compressor's linear size small. The design is based on a traditional Treacy compressor [1] with a modification where two lenses are inserted between the compressor’s gratings. This novel configuration substantially increases the group delay dispersion of the compressor for a given size or, alternatively, decreases the compressor size while maintaining its group delay dispersion [2].

1. 1. E. B. Treacy, “Optical pulse compression with diffraction gratings,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 5(9), 454–458 (1969).
   
   2. V. Ivanov, “Compact optical grating compressor,” Optics Express 30(20), 35338-35347 (2022).