Peak power greatly increases, while total energy remains nearly the same. A pulse is sometimes stretched instead, in order to extract the maximum stored energy as well as reduce possible damage to optical components from excessive powers. This works exactly opposite to the compression scheme in that the chirped pulse is spread out more by the gratings so that the resulting laser beam is longer in duration. This arrangement of two identical gratings allows for lower peak power to be transmitted through the laser system, thereby increasing the amount of stored energy which can be extracted. The efficiency behavior of several typical gratings used for pulse compression and stretching are shown in the figures below.
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