Ray-tracing analysis of a single-grating stretcher with an arbitrary three-mirror unit-magnification telescope

This paper considers the general case of a single-grating femtosecond stretcher with an arbitrary ratio of radii of curvature of the telescope mirrors R 1 / R 2 , including the particular cases with R 1 / R 2 = − 2 and 0, known as Öffner and Martinez configurations, respectively. Analytical expressions for the general stretcher geometry, beam sizes on the elements, and linear properties are obtained with the Kostenbauder matrix formalism. Using the ray-tracing approach, the roles of both the ratio of R 1 / R 2 and the size of the telescope are analyzed in terms of the fourth-order dispersion, angular chirp, and sensitivity to misalignments.