Title :
Evaluation of femtosecond pulse shaping with low-loss phase-only masks
Author :
Takasago, Kazuya ; Takekawa, Makoto ; Suzuki, Masayuki ; Komori, Kazuhiro ; Kannari, Fumihiko
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Electr. Eng., Keio Univ., Yokohama, Japan
Abstract :
We numerically and experimentally evaluate the performance of programmable femtosecond pulse shaping with specified time-dependent amplitude and phase profiles using phase-only masks. With the masks that have discrete phase levels of ⩾4 designed by simulated annealing optimization algorithm, various pulses with arbitrarily specified amplitudes, pulsewidths, and pulse intervals are obtained with high accuracy. However, when specifying temporal phase profiles together with the amplitude, the range of shaped output pulses that can be produced with phase-only masks is somewhat limited even with a phase level of 64. The efficiency of transmitted optical power in the experiments is ~60%, mainly due to the diffraction loss at a grating pair, which is much higher than that using an amplitude-and-phase mask
Keywords :
diffraction gratings; high-speed optical techniques; laser accessories; laser beams; masks; optical elements; optical losses; simulated annealing; 60 percent; amplitude-and-phase mask; arbitrarily specified amplitudes; diffraction loss; discrete phase levels; femtosecond pulse shaping; grating pair; high accuracy; low-loss phase-only masks; phase level; programmable femtosecond pulse shaping; pulse intervals; pulsewidths; shaped output pulses; simulated annealing optimization algorithm; temporal phase profiles; time-dependent amplitude profiles; time-dependent phase profiles; transmitted optical power; Algorithm design and analysis; Design optimization; Optical diffraction; Optical losses; Optical pulse shaping; Optical pulses; Propagation losses; Pulse shaping methods; Simulated annealing; Ultrafast optics;
Journal_Title :
Selected Topics in Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of
DOI :
10.1109/2944.686741
