Chirped-mirror pairs for ultra-broadband dispersion control

Summary form only given. Since their recent introduction by Szipocs et al. dispersion controlled mirrors (DCM) or chirped mirrors have proved to be essential devices for the production of ultra-short pulses directly from the oscillator, and more generally for many aspects of femtosecond laser sources. Further reduction of the pulse duration is still expected for such oscillators, as the whole gain bandwidth of Ti:sapphire has not been utilized yet. Simultaneously, progress in femtosecond optical parametric amplification (OPA) has made possible the production of tunable sub-10-fs pulses in the visible and near infrared.