= Strickland-Mourou chirped pulse amplification experiment
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The 1985 experiment launched $150\,\mathrm{ps}$ pulses from a <mode-locked laser> into $1.4\,\mathrm{km}$ of <optical fiber>. Dispersion and <self-phase modulation> produced a broader spectrum and approximately $300\,\mathrm{ps}$ pulses. A Pockels cell selected a pulse for repeated amplification in neodymium glass, giving approximately $2\,\mathrm{mJ}$ before the double-pass <diffraction grating> compressor. Its transmission was 50 percent. The amplified output was reported as $1\,\mathrm{mJ}$ with a $2\,\mathrm{ps}$ width limited by the streak camera response. The compressor was adjusted on fiber-output pulses using <intensity autocorrelation>; that measurement gave $1.5\,\mathrm{ps}$. <Steve Williamson> was acknowledged for help developing the concept, and <Philippe Bado> and <Marcel Bouvier> for technical support.<Compression of amplified chirped optical pulses by Donna Strickland and Gérard Mourou>[pp.219–221, Figs.1–4 and acknowledgments: preparation, compressor adjustment, amplified readout and response limit]{ref}
The crucial comparison is compression before and after amplification. It asks whether enough usable <spectral phase> structure survives the amplifier, rather than merely whether its output is bright. A response-limited trace cannot establish the true width below the detector's resolution or prove that every higher-order phase coefficient vanished. An <intensity autocorrelation> is also not a direct unique measurement of the complex <electric field>. These are limits on the inference, not extra controls attributed to the experiment.
<Donna Strickland>'s 2018 lecture describes setting the compressor with the high-repetition oscillator pulses and making the amplified-pulse measurement with <Steve Williamson>'s streak camera. It explicitly notes imperfect chirp matching.<Generating High-Intensity Ultrashort Optical Pulses by Donna Strickland>[Generating High-Intensity Ultrashort Optical Pulses, p.168: separate autocorrelation and streak-camera measurements]{ref} The first apparatus therefore illustrates the strategy without establishing a universal lossless or exactly phase-matched amplifier.
<Donna Strickland> leads an ultrafast <laser> group at Waterloo investigating intense <laser> interactions and <nonlinear optics>.<Donna Strickland by University of Waterloo>[Biography and research interests: professional appointment and experimental research]{ref} <Gérard Mourou>'s later work includes coherent combination of <laser> beams in the XCAN project at École polytechnique.<The first laser pixels by École polytechnique>[Professor emeritus and XCAN prototype: coherent combination of 61 beams]{ref} Their complementary research settings connect the original short-pulse experiment with the continuing problems of producing useful <energy>, <peak power> and average <power> together.
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