We study multi-shot intensity-and-phase measurements of unstable trains of ultrashort pulses using spectral-phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER), second harmonic generation (SHG) frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG), polarization gate (PG) FROG, and cross-correlation FROG (XFROG). An analytical calculation suggests that SPIDER cannot indicate instability in pulse trains well. Simulations confirm this and demonstrate that SPIDER only measures the coherent artifact. Further, the presence of instability cannot be distinguised from benign misalignment effects in SPIDER. FROG methods suggest instability by exhibiting clear disagreement between measured and retrieved traces.

Date Published: 15 March 2013
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 8611, Frontiers in Ultrafast Optics: Biomedical, Scientific, and Industrial Applications XIII, 86110R (15 March 2013); doi: 10.1117/12.2003302

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 8611:
Frontiers in Ultrafast Optics: Biomedical, Scientific, and Industrial Applications XIII
Alexander Heisterkamp; Peter R. Herman; Michel Meunier; Stefan Nolte, Editor(s)