Generation of picosecond pulses with variable temporal profiles and linear polarization by coherent pulse stacking in a birefringent crystal shaper

We report the study and demonstration of a new laser pulse shaping system capable of generating linearly polarized picosecond laser pulses with variable temporal profiles including symmetric intensity distributions such as parabolic, flattop, elliptical, triangular, as well as non-symmetric distributions, which are highly desired by various applications. It is found that both high transmittance and high stability of the shaped pulse can be achieved simultaneously when crystals are set at a specific phase delay through fine control of the crystal temperature. Although multi-crystal pulse stacking with different configurations were reported before particularly for flattop pulse generation, this new configuration leads to new opportunities for many potential applications over a wide range of laser wavelengths, pulse repetition rate, time structures and power levels. A practical double-pass temporal shaping configuration that significantly reduces the number of crystals is also proposed in this paper as a result of this work.