Diffractive pulse shaper for arbitrary waveform generation.

ABSTRACT

We propose an all-diffractive pulse shaper for arbitrary waveform generation in the femtosecond regime. This optical device improves in several aspects the performance of our previous quasi-direct pulse shaper reported in Mínguez-Vega et al. [Opt. Express16, 16993 (2008)]. In the present implementation, by using grayscale masks we can achieve arbitrary temporal waveforms. Additionally, the holographic reconstruction of the above masks by means of phase holograms allows for a high-efficiency shaping process. The behavior of the pulse shaper is tested by numerical simulations.