A laser system, comprising: an oscillator, configured to generate a seed beam having a beam radius; a stretcher-compressor comprising a chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) formed in the same single crystal and integrated into a chirped pulse amplification laser engine and configured: to receive the seed beam, and to stretch a duration of seed pulses of the seed beam, an adjustable seed-beam restrictor, attached to a stretcher face (211 s) of the stretcher-compressor, and configured for adjustment_in a transverse dimension relative to the optical axis of the stretcher compressor to restrict an incidence in a transverse direction relative to the optical axis of a seed beam, generated by the oscillator, on the stretcher-compressor, an amplifier, configured to receive the stretched seed pulses from the stretcher-compressor, to amplify an amplitude of selected stretched seed pulses to create amplified stretched pulses, and to output a laser beam of amplified stretched pulses; wherein the stretcher-compressor is configured to receive the laser beam of amplified stretched pulses, to compress a duration of the amplified stretched pulses, and to output a laser beam of compressed pulses, and an amplified-beam restrictor, attached to the stretcher-compressor at a compressor face (211 c), and configured for adjustment in a transverse dimension relative to the optical axis to restrict an incidence in a transverse direction relative to the optical axis of an amplified beam on the stretcher-compressor; the chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) having transverse variations of the layer characteristics in a direction transverse to the optical axis and wherein the beam restrictors are adjustable to address said transverse variations of the layer characteristics within the beam radius to reduce spatial chirp. an oscillator, configured to generate a seed beam having a beam radius; a stretcher-compressor comprising a chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) formed in the same single crystal and integrated into a chirped pulse amplification laser engine and configured: to receive the seed beam, and to stretch a duration of seed pulses of the seed beam, to receive the seed beam, and to stretch a duration of seed pulses of the seed beam, an adjustable seed-beam restrictor, attached to a stretcher face (211 s) of the stretcher-compressor, and configured for adjustment_in a transverse dimension relative to the optical axis of the stretcher compressor to restrict an incidence in a transverse direction relative to the optical axis of a seed beam, generated by the oscillator, on the stretcher-compressor, for adjustment_in a transverse dimension relative to the optical axis of the stretcher compressor to restrict an incidence in a transverse direction relative to the optical axis of a seed beam, generated by the oscillator, on the stretcher-compressor, an amplifier, configured to receive the stretched seed pulses from the stretcher-compressor, to amplify an amplitude of selected stretched seed pulses to create amplified stretched pulses, and to output a laser beam of amplified stretched pulses; wherein to receive the stretched seed pulses from the stretcher-compressor, to amplify an amplitude of selected stretched seed pulses to create amplified stretched pulses, and to output a laser beam of amplified stretched pulses; wherein the stretcher-compressor is configured to receive the laser beam of amplified stretched pulses, to compress a duration of the amplified stretched pulses, and to output a laser beam of compressed pulses, and to receive the laser beam of amplified stretched pulses, to compress a duration of the amplified stretched pulses, and to output a laser beam of compressed pulses, and an amplified-beam restrictor, attached to the stretcher-compressor at a compressor face (211 c), and configured for adjustment in a transverse dimension relative to the optical axis to restrict an incidence in a transverse direction relative to the optical axis of an amplified beam on the stretcher-compressor; the chirped volume Bragg grating (CVBG) having transverse variations of the layer characteristics in a direction transverse to the optical axis and wherein the beam restrictors are adjustable to address said transverse variations of the layer characteristics within the beam radius to reduce spatial chirp.