US 12,438,326 B2
Adaptive spatio-temporal optical pulse shaper
Michael H. Helle, Arlington, VA (US)
Assigned to The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Arlington, VA (US)
Filed by The Government of the United States of America, as represented by the Secretary of the Navy, Arlington, VA (US)
Filed on Oct. 27, 2022, as Appl. No. 18/050,063.
Claims priority of provisional application 63/272,364, filed on Oct. 27, 2021.
Prior Publication US 2023/0163549 A1, May 25, 2023
Int. Cl. H01S 3/00 (2006.01)
CPC H01S 3/0057 (2013.01) [G02F 2203/26 (2013.01)] 2 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An adaptive spatio-temporal optical pulse shaper (A-STOPS) apparatus, comprising:
a laser source that emits a beam of laser pulses, each having a predetermined temporal chirp comprising a plurality of frequency components;
a first dispersive element that receives the beam of laser pulses and spatially spreads each pulse in the beam by spreading the frequency components of the laser pulse spatially in one transverse dimension to produce a plurality of spatially chirped pulses;
a first collimating element that receives the spatially chirped pulses from the first dispersive element, removes the angular spreading of the frequency components from each pulse, and collimates the spatially chirped pulses to produce a first collimated beam where temporal information about the beam is mapped into each pulse's spatial information;
a first programmable spatial varying optical element that encodes first predetermined programmable information onto each pulse by varying its phase and/or amplitude in a direction perpendicular to a direction of the pulse's spatial chirp to produce a beam of spatially encoded pulses;
a second collimating element that receives the beam of spatially encoded pulses and angularly collects the frequency components of each pulse to remove the spatial chirp of the spatially encoded pulses;
a second dispersive element that receives the beam of spatially encoded pulses and removes any residual angular dispersion from the beam of spatially encoded pulses to produce a second collimated beam where frequency dependent spatial information about the beam is mapped into each pulse's temporal information producing predetermined, controllable non-dispersed beam of spatially encoded pulses that each carry a user-defined time-varying electric field profile of the pulse's phase and amplitude in one spatial dimension;
a rotating element that receives the beam of spatially encoded pulses from the second dispersive element and rotates each of the pulses 90 degrees;
a third dispersive element that receives the rotated pulses from the rotating element and spatially spreads each pulse in the beam by spreading the frequency components of the laser pulse spatially in one transverse dimension parallel to the encoding to produce a plurality of spatially chirped pulses;
a third collimating element that receives the beam of temporally dispersed pulses from the third dispersive element and removes the angular spreading of the frequency components from each pulse, and collimates the spatially chirped pulses to produce a first collimated beam where temporal information about the beam is mapped into the dimension parallel to encoding of the pulses;
a second programmable spatial varying optical element that receives the collimated beam of spatially chirped pulses and encodes second predetermined programmable information onto each spatially chirped pulse by varying its phase and/or amplitude in a direction perpendicular to a direction of the pulse's spatial chirp to produce a beam of pulses encoded in both dimensions;
a fourth collimating element that receives the beam of spatially encoded pulses and angularly collects the frequency components of each pulse to remove the spatial chirp of the spatially encoded pulses; and
a fourth dispersive element that removes any residual angular dispersion from the beam of spatially encoded pulses to produce a fourth collimated beam where frequency dependent spatial information about the beam is mapped into each pulse's temporal information produce a beam of fully encoded spatio-temporally shaped pulses that are encoded in both spatial dimensions.