
100 Femtosecond Optics
2.5.3. GVD through Angular Dispersion—General
Angular dispersion has been advantageously used for a long time to resolve
spectra or for spectral filtering, utilizing the spatial distribution of the frequency
components behind the dispersive element (e.g., prism, grating). In connection
with fs optics, angular dispersion has the interesting property of introducing
GVD. At first glance this seems to be an undesired effect. However, optical
devices based on angular dispersion, which allow for a continuous tuning of the
GVD can be designed. This idea was first implemented in Treacy [28] for the
compression of chirped pulses with diffraction ...