Adaptive all-order dispersion compensation of ultrafast laser pulses using dynamic spectral holography

The time-varying dispersion of ultrafast laser pulses can be self-adaptively stabilized using real-time dynamic spectral holography in semiconductor photorefractive quantum wells. Dispersion of all orders is compensated by forming a dynamic spectral-domain hologram of a signal pulse (that has a time-varying dispersion) referenced to a stable clock pulse. The hologram is read out using forward-scattering phase conjugation to remove phase distortion to all orders, including drift in the time of flight. We have achieved adaptive cancellation of time-of-flight excursions up to +/- 15 ps to an accuracy of +/- 15 fs with a compensation bandwidth of 1 kHz. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S0003-6951(99)02247-0].