Mirror-dispersion-controlled sub-10-fs optical parametric amplifier in thevisible

Pulses from an optical parametric amplifier in the visible are compressed t o sub-10-fs duration by a delay line made exclusively from chirped dielectr ic mirrors. We employ what we believe are the first ultrabroadband visible chirped mirrors, which provide negative group-delay dispersion up to the bl ue-green spectral region. The setup is compact and reliable, and we used it to observe, for what is to our knowledge the first time in organic molecul es, coherent oscillations with periods as short as 16 fs. (C) 1999 Optical Society of America OCIS codes: 190.4410, 190.4970, 190.7110.