Pulses in the two-cycle regime from a SESAM-assisted KLM Ti:sapphire laser and sub 10-fs pulse characterization

Author

Sutter, D.H. ; Gallmann, L. ; Matuschek, N. ; Morier-Genoud, F. ; Steinmeyer, G. ; Keller, U. ; Scheuer, V. ; Angelow, G. ; Tschudi, T. ; Iaconis, C. ; Walmsley, I.A.

Author_Institution

Inst. for Quantum Electron., Swiss Fed. Inst. of Technol., Zurich, Switzerland

fYear

1999

fDate

28-28 May 1999

Firstpage

534

Lastpage

535

Abstract

Summary form only given. Proper measurement of sub-10-fs pulses is still controversial and challenging. The duration of world record ultrashort optical pulses has previously been estimated from interferometric autocorrelation (IAC) traces. Other techniques, such as spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER) and frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) have been developed that retrieve both amplitude and phase of the pulse. We discuss the limitations of SPIDER, FROG, and IAC for ultrashort pulses. Pulse durations can be significantly underestimated by fitting parameters of an ideal sech/sup 2/-soliton to the IAC.

Keywords

laser beams; laser mirrors; laser mode locking; laser variables measurement; lenses; light interferometry; optical Kerr effect; optical information processing; optical pulse generation; optical saturable absorption; pulse measurement; sapphire; signal reconstruction; solid lasers; titanium; 1 mum to 620 nm; Al/sub 2/O/sub 3/:Ti; FROG; Kerr-lens mode locked laser; SPIDER; Ti:sapphire laser; frequency-resolved optical gating; ideal sech/sup 2/-soliton; interferometric autocorrelation traces; pulse amplitude; pulse durations; pulse phase; semiconductor saturable absorber mirror; spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction; sub femtosecond pulse characterization; two-cycle regime; ultrashort optical pulses; ultrashort pulses; Frequency estimation; Nonlinear optics; Optical interferometry; Optical pulses; Optical resonators; Phase measurement; Pulse amplifiers; Pulse measurements; Spectroscopy; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Lasers and Electro-Optics, 1999. CLEO '99. Summaries of Papers Presented at the Conference on

Conference_Location

Baltimore, MD, USA

Print_ISBN

1-55752-595-1

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/CLEO.1999.834557

Filename

834557