Comparative investigation of fast photodetector responses to complex shaped optical pulses

Summary form only given. An important feature for the 40 kJ/sub UV/, 60 beam OMEGA laser system is a flexible pulse-shaping system that produces complex temporally shaped optical pulses for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments. Accurate characterization of the temporal pulse shape at the input and output of the laser system is important for characterizing the laser, as well as modeling fusion target reactions. In this paper we have tested several commonly used fast photodetectors used for analyzing these pulses.