Air-gap silicon nitride chirped mirror for few-cycle pulse compression

We propose new design solution for broadband chirped mirrors. It consists in application of silicon nitride with air-gap interlayers. This proposal is the first application of silicon nitride to a chirped mirror, to the best of our knowledge. The proposed material combination allows to realize CMs supplying bandwidth from ultraviolet to near infrared. Using this idea we have made design of silicon nitride - air-gap chirped mirror for compression of few-cycles laser pulses in the near-infrared. Our CM provides high reflectivity and good dispersion properties in the wavelength range 400-1200 nm. Time domain analysis shows that designed CM allows to operate on few-cycles laser pulses. (Received September 14, 2008; accepted September 26, 2008)