Shot-to-shot interferometry of pulsed reproducible quasi-monochromatic signals

A procedure for constructing interferograms on a shot-by-shot basis is proposed. It is shown how Michelson's fringe visibility criterion can be applied to a sequence of interferometer signals to test whether or not their Fourier transform properly represents the pulse frequency spectrum. The ideas discussed are illustrated by experiments with 50 ns CO₂ TEA laser pulses.