Theoretical and experimental spectral phase error analysis for pulsed laser fields

摘要

Distortions in pulsed laser fields are analyzed by means of the root mean square of intensity-weighted spectral phase deviations. This method quantified pulse errors independently of pulse duration and can be applied to both simple, transform-limited and complex, shaped pulses. A good linear relationship exists (fit correlation=0.95) between the analyzed phase deviations and temporal pulse distortion measures. In contrast, a common Taylor series analysis showed a fit correlation of only 0.5 with temporal measures. Alternative methods examined, such as the pulse FWHM, were determined to be less general measures of pulse distortion and, in modeling of spectral phase errors, were shown to have the potential of being misleading.