Generation of phase-controlled ultraviolet pulses and characterization by a simple autocorrelator setup

Abstract

A versatile femtosecond ultraviolet (UV) pulse generation, a phase modulation, and a characterization setup for coherent control applications are demonstrated. For high-performance phase control of ultrashort pulses direct in the UV a microelectromechanical-system-based 2D mirror array is applied. Multiple examples for successful phase control of ultrashort UV pulses are given, such as arbitrarily phase tailoring and pulse recompression in open and closed loop schemes. For simple and effective characterization of the generated pulses, a UV autocorrelator based on two-photon absorption in a solar blind photomultiplier is constructed. The effects of space-time coupling on split mirror autocorrelation measurements are addressed and minimized.

Simple, picojoule-sensitive ultraviolet autocorrelator based on two-photon conductivity in sapphire

“…This is presumably due to imperfect overlap of the focused beams inside the sapphire. This is consistent with the peak-to-background ratios obtained with other photoconductive or photoelectric sensors in the UV [7][8][9]. Figure 5(a) shows a typical autocorrelation trace of the third harmonic of the titanium sapphire laser using the sapphire TPC sensor and 2.0 mW of 266.7 nm light (180 W peak power).…”

Discriminating Biomolecules with Coherent Control Strategies

“…[7] This led us to develop a new pulse shaper based on MEMS (Micro Electro Mechanical Systems) micromirror arrays. Unlike previous developments using commercial wavefront correction devices, [8][9][10] our approach consists of tailoring a micromirror array for this specific application. [11] The 100-micromirrors contained within the device allow excellent reflectivity over the whole DUV-Vis-NIR (Al coating, Typ.…”

Spectral phase, amplitude, and spatial modulation from ultraviolet to infrared with a reflective MEMS pulse shaper

“…Subsequently, a series of characterizations of the same chip have been carried out by ours [14] and by the Motkus research group [15] at 266 and 315 nm, respectively. Very recently, we have described the performances of a novel one-dimensional MEMS device for phase-only shaping that we designed and developed.…”