Complete characterization of weak, ultrashort near-UV pulses by spectral interferometry

We present a method for a complete characterization of a femtosecond ultraviolet pulse when a fundamental near-infrared beam is also available. Our approach relies on generation of second harmonic from the pre-characterized fundamental, which serves as a reference against which an unknown pulse is measured using spectral interference (SI). The characterization apparatus is a modified second harmonic frequency resolved optical gating setup which additionally allows for taking SI spectrum. The presented method is linear in the unknown field, simple and sensitive. We checked its accuracy using test pulses generated in a thick nonlinear crystal, demonstrating the ability to measure the phase in a broad spectral range, down to 0.1% peak spectral intensity as well as retrieving pi leaps in the spectral phase

Phase retrieval and time-frequency methods in the measurement of ultrashort laser pulses

Recently several techniques have become available to measure the time- (or frequency-) dependent intensity and phase of ultrashort laser pulses. One of these, Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating (FROG), is rigorous and has achieved single-laser-shot operation. FROG combines the concepts of time-frequency analysis in the form of spectrogram generation (in order to create a two-dimensional problem), and uses a phase-retrieval-based algorithm to invert the experimental data to yield the intensity and phase of the laboratory laser pulse. In FROG it is easy to generate a spectrogram of the unknown signal, and inversion of the spectrogram to recover the signal is the main goal. Because the temporal width of a femtosecond laser pulse is much shorter than anything achievable by electronics, FROG uses the pulse to measure itself. In FROG, the laser pulse is split into two replicas of itself by a partially reflecting beamsplitter, and the two replicas interact with each other in a medium with an instantaneous nonlinear-optical response. This interaction generates a signal field that is then frequency-resolved using a spectrometer. The spectrum of the signal field is measured for all relevant values of the temporal delay between the two pulses. Here, the authors employ FROG and FROG related techniques to measure the time-dependent intensity and phase of an ultrashort laser pulse