System for detecting pulse duration fluctuations of laser pulses and method for generating laser pulses

Abstract

The disclosure provides an optical system which allows fluctuations in the pulse duration of ultrashort laser pulses to be detected quickly, sensitively and simply, and in a manner which makes it possible to derive an error signal for controlling the pulse duration from the detection. The optical system provided has a laser source (1) designed for generating pulsed laser radiation consisting of a chronological sequence of laser pulses, at least one dispersive optical element (4), designed to impress a group transit time dispersion and thus a chirp on the laser pulses, a nonlinear medium (5) designed for the non-linear spectral broadening of the laser pulses during propagation through the medium (5), and a detection device (6) designed to detect the spectral broadening. Furthermore, the disclosure relates to a method for generating laser pulses.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.