ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a more thorough discussion of how phase affects the temporal properties of a laser pulse. Beyond the absolute phase, the most interesting case to consider is the effect of a spectral phase function corresponding to a linear change with respect to frequency. As a pulse of light evolves in time, each frequency component advances according to the product between the frequency and the time interval. The chapter considers a positive quadratic spectral phase to be a combination of positive slopes from the vertex to higher frequencies and negative slopes from the vertex toward lower frequencies. One can now deduce that a positive quadratic spectral phase results in a pulse whose higher frequencies are delayed and lower frequencies are advanced. Working with FemtoPulse Master is simple. The program starts with certain assumed pulse characteristics such as transform-limited pulses that are centered at 800 nm with 50-fs pulse duration.
