How to Manipulate and Change the Characteristics of Laser Pulses

Up to this point in this book, we have dealt successively with the basics of producing ultrashort laser pulses and the main types of laser sources that make it possible to generate these pulses. However, for a given laser system the pulse duration, wavelength and energy are, in practice, fixed. But specific applications may require one to change the pulse duration, or to get more energy or even generate pulse replicas at different wavelengths. This chapter will present various ways to compress or stretch femtosecond optical pulses, amplify them or change their wavelength. This description is not aimed at an exhaustive description of all the various techniques or technologies used in these fields, but more as an introduction to these techniques based on particular examples.