Item

Abstract

In this thesis a compressor for ultrashort laser pulses consisting of a transmissive grating, a prism and two retroreflectors was modeled using a ray-tracing method. The goal was to compensate for 1; 55 ps² group delay dispersion and 0; 0025 ps³ third order dispersion introduced by an amplifier stage, consisting of a Ytterbium-doped fibre pumped by a diode laser. In order to verify the model it was applied to less complex systems for which theoretical models exist. A comparison of the results obtained by the model to the theoretical values yielded an agreement of more than 99% for the analytical calculations. The numerical method lacked precision in computing second and third order coefficients of a polynomial fit onto the phase derived by ray-tracing. Furthermore the dependence of the dispersion on free parameters of the modeled compressors was investigated. Finally, using those relations for a setup consisting of a SF10 prism and a 1250 lines/mm grating a configuration was found which compensates the desired amount of GDD but not of TOD.