Pulse compression by use of deformable mirrors

An electrostatically deformable, gold-coated, silicon nitride membrane mirr or was used as a phase modulator to compress pulses from 92 to 15 fs. Both an iterative genetic algorithm and single-step dispersion compensation base d on frequency-resolved optical gating calibration of the mirror were used to-compress pulses to within 10% of the transform limit. Frequency-resolved optical gating was used to characterize the pulses and to test the range o f the deformable-mirror-based compressor. (C) 1999 Optical Society of Ameri ca.