Wave-front correction of femtosecond terawatt lasers by deformable mirrors.
Wave-front correction and focal spot improvement of femtosecond laser beams have been achieved, for the first time to our knowledge, with a deformable mirror with an on-line single-shot three-wave lateral shearing interferometer diagnostic. Wave-front distortions of a 100-fs laser that are due to third-order nonlinear effects have been compensated for. This technique, which permits correction in a straightforward process that requires no feedback loop, is also used on a 10-TW Ti:sapphire-Nd:phosphate glass laser in the subpicosecond regime. We also demonstrate that having a focal spot close to the diffraction limit does not constitute a good criterion for the quality of the laser in terms of peak intensity.
Druon
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F
Center for Ultrafast Optical Sciences, University of Michigan, 1006 I.S.T. Building, 2200 Bonisteel Boulevard, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-2099, USA.
Chériaux
G
G
Faure
J
J
Nees
J
J
Nantel
M
M
Maksimchuk
A
A
Mourou
G
G
Chanteloup
J C
JC
Vdovin
G
G