High-dispersive mirrors for femtosecond lasers

Abstract

We report on the development of highly dispersive mirrors for chirped-pulse oscillators (CPO) and amplifiers (CPA). In this proof-of-concept study, we demonstrate the usability of highly dispersive multilayer mirrors for high-energy femtosecond oscillators, namely for i) a chirped-pulse Ti:Sa oscillator and ii) an Yb:YAG disk oscillator. In both cases a group delay dispersion (GDD) of the order of 2×10⁴ fs² was introduced, accompanied with an overall transmission loss as low as ∼ 2 per cent. This unprecedented combination of high dispersion and low loss over a sizeable bandwidth with multilayer structures opens the prospects for femtosecond CPA systems equipped with a compact, alignment-insensitive all-mirror compressors providing compensation of GDD as well as higher-order dispersion. ©2008 Optical Society of America.