Practical issues in ultrashort-laser-pulse measurement using frequency-resolved optical gating

Journal Article · Mon Jul 01 00:00:00 EDT 1996 · IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1109/3.517026· OSTI ID:276563

DeLong, K W; Fittinghoff, D N; Trebino, R ^[1]

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1. Sandia National Labs., Livermore, CA (United States)

The authors explore several practical experimental issues in measuring ultrashort laser pulses using the technique of frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG). They present a simple method for checking the consistency of experimentally measured FROG data with the independently measured spectrum and autocorrelation of the pulse. This method is a powerful way of discovering systematic errors in FROG experiments. They show how to determine the optimum sampling rate for FROG and show that this satisfies the Nyquist criterion for the laser pulse. They explore the low- and high-power limits to FROG and determine that femtojoule operation should be possible, while the effects of self-phase modulation limit the highest signal efficiency in FROG to 1%. They also show quantitatively that the temporal blurring due to a finite-thickness medium in single-shot geometries does not strongly limit the FROG technique. They explore the limiting time-bandwidth values that can be represented on a FROG trace of a given size. Finally, they report on a new measure of the FROG error that improves convergence in the presence of noise.

• OSTI ID: 276563
• Journal Information: IEEE Journal of Quantum Electronics, Vol. 32, Issue 7; Other Information: PBD: Jul 1996
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

42 ENGINEERING NOT INCLUDED IN OTHER CATEGORIES
LASER RADIATION
MEASURING METHODS
LIMITING VALUES
ACCURACY
PERFORMANCE
ELECTROMAGNETIC PULSES