Title:
Measuring Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About a Laser Pulse
Measuring Everything You've Always Wanted to Know About a Laser Pulse
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Author(s)
Trebino, Rick
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Abstract
Measuring an event in time seems to require a shorter one. As a result, the development of a technique for measuring ultrashort laser pulses "the shortest events ever created” has been particularly difficult. We have, however, developed simple methods for fully characterizing these events, that is, for measuring a pulse's intensity and phase vs. time. One involves making an optical spectrogram of the pulse by using nonlinear optic. The mathematics involved is equivalent to the two-dimensional phase-retrieval problem, a problem that's solvable because the Fundamental Theorem of Algebra fails for polynomials of two variables. We call this method Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating (FROG), and it' s simple, rigorous, intuitive, and general. FROG has been used to measure pulses as short as 80 attoseconds (8×10-17s), and it has also measured the most complex ultrashort pulse ever generated. And we have recently developed simple methods (also with frivolous acronyms: SEA TADPOLE, MUD TADPOLE, and STRIPED FISH) for measuring the complete spatio-temporal field of an arbitrary laser pulse, making ultrashort laser pulses the best characterized form of light known to humankind.
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Date Issued
2011-09-07
Extent
53:58 minutes
Resource Type
Moving Image
Resource Subtype
Lecture