 The angular dispersion for generalized prismatic arrays, applicable to laser pulse compression, can be calculated exactly using the multiple-prism dispersion theory.In particular, the dispersion, its first derivative, and its second derivative, are given by 

where

Angular quantities are defined in the article for the multiple-prism dispersion theory and higher derivatives are given by Duarte.The most common other pulse compressor is based on gratings (see Chirped pulse amplification), which can easily create a much larger negative dispersion than a prism compressor (centimeters rather than tenths of millimeters).