Temporal dispersion of a spectrometer

The temporal dispersion of an optical spectrometer has been characterized for a variety of conditions related to optical diagnostics to be fielded at the National Ignition Facility (e.g., full-aperture backscatter station, Thomson scattering). Significant time smear is introduced into these systems by the path length difference through the spectrometer. The temporal resolution is shown to depend only on the order of the grating, wavelength, and the number of grooves illuminated. To enhance the temporal resolution, the spectral gratings can be masked limiting the number of grooves illuminated. Experiments have been conducted to verify these calculations. The size and shape of masks are investigated and correlated with the exact shape of the temporal instrument function, which is required when interpreting temporally resolved data. The experiments used a 300 fs laser pulse and a picosecond optical streak camera to determine the temporal dispersion. This was done for multiple spectral orders, gratings, and optical masks.