Stretching of picosecond laser pulses with uniform reflecting volume Bragg gratings

This study shows that a uniform reflecting volume Bragg grating (VBG) can be used as a compact monolithic stretcher of high-power picosecond laser pulses, which is important for cases in which chirped Bragg gratings with the required chirp rate are difficult to fabricate. When an incident short pulse propagates along a grating and experiences local Bragg diffraction, a chirp-free reflected stretched pulse with an almost rectangular shape is generated. The increase in the duration of the reflected pulse is approximately equal to twice the propagation time along the grating. We derive an analytic expression for the diffraction efficiency, which incorporates the incident pulse duration, grating thickness, and amplitude of the refractive index modulation, enabling selection of the optimum grating for pulse stretching. Theoretical models of the extended pulse profiles are found to be in good agreement with experimental autocorrelation measurements. We also propose a simple and reliable method to control the temporal parameters of high-power picosecond pulses using the same laser source and a VBG of variable thickness, which can simplify experiments requiring different pulse durations significantly. (paper)