Title :
Time-resolved optical gating based on dispersive propagation: a new method to characterize optical pulses
Author :
Koumans, Roger G M P ; Yariv, Amnon
Author_Institution :
Dept. of Appl. Phys., California Inst. of Technol., Pasadena, CA, USA
Abstract :
We introduce the technique of time-resolved optical gating (TROG) based on dispersive propagation (DP), a new noninterferometric method for characterizing ultrashort optical pulses in amplitude and phase without the need for a short optical gating pulse. TROG is similar to frequency-resolved optical gating except that the role of time and frequency is interchanged. For the DP-TROG geometry, we show that measurements of the autocorrelation trace of the pulse after propagation through a medium with variable dispersion together with a single measurement of its intensity spectrum contain sufficient information to reconstruct the pulse in amplitude and phase. Pulse reconstruction for this DP-TROG geometry works very well even for the case of a nonlinearly chirped double pulse. Compared with other methods, DP-TROG does not introduce an ambiguity in the direction of time for the pulse. Due to its simplicity and improved sensitivity. DP-TROC is expected to be useful in characterizing low-energy pulses.
Keywords :
high-speed optical techniques; optical correlation; optical dispersion; sensitivity; DP-TROG geometry; TROG; autocorrelation trace; dispersive propagation; intensity spectrum; low-energy pulses; noninterferometric method; nonlinearly chirped double pulse; optical pulses; pulse reconstruction; sensitivity; time-resolved optical gating; ultrashort optical pulse amplitude; ultrashort optical pulse phase; variable dispersion; Autocorrelation; Dispersion; Frequency; Geometrical optics; Information geometry; Optical propagation; Optical pulses; Optical sensors; Phase measurement; Pulse measurements;
Journal_Title :
Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of
