Single-beam homodyne SPIDER for multiphoton microscopy

We report a new version of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric field reconstruction (SPIDER) requiring only a single phase-shaped laser beam. A narrowband probe pulse is selected out of a broadband ultrafast laser pulse by a phase pulse-shaping technique and mixed with the original broadband pulse to generate a second-harmonic generation (SHG) signal. Using another SHG signal solely generated by the broadband pulse as a local oscillator, the spectral phase of the broadband laser pulse can be analytically retrieved by a combination of double-quadrature spectral interferometry and homodyne optical technique for SPIDER (HOT SPIDER). An arbitrary spectral phase at the sample position of a microscope can be compensated with a precision of 0.05 rad over the FWHM of the laser spectrum. It is readily applicable to a nonlinear microscopy technique with a phase-controlled broadband laser pulse.     

Characterization of a broadband pulse for phase controlled multiphoton microscopy by single beam SPIDER

We present what we believe to be a new version of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric field reconstruction (SPIDER) using only a single-phase and polarization controlled laser beam. Two narrow pulses and one broadband pulse are selected out of an ultrafast laser pulse by a polarization and phase control technique to generate second harmonic generation (SHG) signals, which are equivalent to a spectral shear interferogram in the conventional SPIDER method. The spectral phase of the broadband laser pulse is extracted analytically with double quadrature spectral interferometry (DQSI). An arbitrary spectral phase can be retrieved with great precision and compensated in situ at the sample position of a microscope. This new method requires no separate reference beam and is suitable for nonlinear optical microscopy with a phase controlled laser pulse.     

Aberrationless approach for diffraction of pulses at linear interfaces

The diffraction of temporally Gaussian shaped light pulses is theoretically studied by means of the aberrationless approach, a theoretical technique previously used for spatially bounded beams of unlimited time extension and which is extended here to time domain. We consider linear interfaces, that is, we assume that the spectral components of the vector field in the diffracted pulse are linearly related with the spectral components of the vector field in the incident pulse. In our analysis pulse deformations are described in terms of the following effects: time delay, focal displacement, waist modification and change in propagation velocity. Expressions for these effects, the time domain analogues of those already reported in the spatial domain, are given and compared with those obtained using the stationary phase method. The theory is used to calculate deformations of a short light pulse at a flat interface near conditions of total internal reflection.     

Full Bandwidth Measurement of Supercontinuum Spectral Phase Coherence in Long Pulse Regime

Abstract

This article reports that spectral phase coherence in the supercontinuum in long pulse regime can be measured simply and effectively by using an interference technique with the help of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. It is also demonstrated that chromatic dispersion on the fringe visibility of interference spectral patterns is overcome in the setup. The technique is applied to characterize supercontinuum spectral phase coherence in a highly non-linear optical fiber with different input conditions: unseeded, coherent seeded, and incoherent seeded picosecond pumps. The results confirm the phase coherence characteristic predicted theoretically in previous studies.     

Highly sensitive direct characterization of femtosecond pulses by electro-optic spectral shearing interferometry

We report what is to our knowledge the first experimental demonstration of spectral shearing interferometry by use of an electro-optic temporal phase modulator to generate the spectral shear. This approach achieves far better sensitivity than nonlinear optical pulse characterization techniques, including other versions of spectral shearing interferometry. Temporal phase modulation is conceptually simple and is implemented easily with telecommunication components. The technique is versatile, and a wide range of pulse durations can be measured with minimal changes in the setup. We demonstrate the accurate characterization of a 156-MHz train of 1540-nm pulses with durations ranging from 750 fs to more than 30 ps after various amounts of chirping, at average powers below 1 microW.     

小波变换重建超短脉冲光谱相位的误差分析

分析了噪声对小波变换重建超短脉冲光谱相位的影响. 在理想情况和附加噪声、倍增噪声， 以及干涉条纹采样量化干扰的情况下，分析了小波变换对几种光谱相位的重建精度. 结果显 示，在理想情况和噪声干扰的情况下，小波变换的相位重建精度都在003rad范围以内. 这 说明小波变换是一种精确可信的光谱相位重建方法，具有很强的抗噪声干扰能力. 另外，将 小波变换的轨迹图类比SHG FROG的轨迹图，可以直接定性判断脉冲的啁啾特征. 关键词： 超短脉冲 相位重建 小波变换 噪声     

Bright and dark 40 GHz parabolic pulse generation using a picosecond optical pulse train and an arrayed waveguide grating

We demonstrate parabolic optical pulse generation by manipulating the intensity and phase of individual longitudinal modes of a 40 GHz picosecond optical pulse train in the spectral domain. Bright and dark parabolic pulses were generated from a 40 GHz mode-locked fiber laser using a 64-channel arrayed waveguide grating pulse shaper. The obtained parabolic pulse, which can easily generate a linear chirping, is useful for a number of applications to optical signal processing applications, including pulse compression and time-domain optical Fourier transformation.     

用SPIDER法测量飞秒激光脉冲的光谱相位

介绍了用SPIDER测量光谱相位的实验装置和模拟计算飞秒激光特性参数的原理；提出了Ω 和τ等重要参数的确定方法.实验上用自建的SPIDER进行了掺钛蓝宝石飞秒振荡器输出脉 冲的相位测量，并以此为基础还原出了原输入脉冲的时域形式，模合计算所得的脉宽为107 fs，与利用二次相关法直接测量的结果十分一致. 关键词： 飞秒激光 SPIDER 光谱相位 光谱相干     

Ponderomotive shearing for spectral interferometry of extreme-ultraviolet pulses

We propose a novel method for completely characterizing ultrashort pulses at extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) wavelengths by adapting the technique of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction to this spectral region. Two-electron wave packets are coherently produced by photoionizing atoms with two time-delayed replicas of the XUV pulse. For one of the XUV pulses, photoionization occurs in the presence of a strong infrared pulse that ponderomotively shifts the binding energy, thereby providing the spectral shear needed for reconstruction of the spectral phase of the XUV pulse.     

无干涉条纹的光谱位相相干直接电场重构法

提出一种新的诊断飞秒脉冲振幅与位相的高精度测量方法.该方法发展了传统的SPIDER方法，保留了原方法对脉冲信息可以实时、有效和全面地测取的优点，并能克服其不能测量脉宽较大或位相信息复杂的脉冲的缺点.在新方法中和频后的脉冲对没有相对延时，形成无干涉条纹的剪切干涉图.在调节一个小量延时于某些特定值，可去掉剪切干涉图的歧义性.给出数值模拟结果，证明此方法无需经过傅里叶变换滤波，可直接由干涉图唯一地提取出脉冲的振幅与位相信息. 关键词： 光谱位相相干直接电场重构法 飞秒脉冲测量 超快信息光学     

Acousto-optical shaping of ultraviolet femtosecond pulses

This work demonstrates a simple method for ultraviolet (UV) acousto-optical pulse shaping of both spectral amplitude and phase. A fused-silica acousto-optical modulator is used to ensure high transmission and a high damage threshold at 400-nm center wavelength. The technique eliminates complications associated with the parametric transfer of the spectral phase of near-infrared pulses through a nonlinear process out to UV wavelengths, by separating the frequency doubling and shaping processes. Three illustrative applications of phase control are presented: the compensation of material dispersion, the generation of multiple pulse trains, and the generation of arbitrarily shaped pulse trains. Self-diffraction frequency-resolved optical gating is used to characterize the success of the technique.     

基于旋转相干光谱的整形飞秒激光转动动力学调控

我们实验上发展了基于飞秒激光旋转相干光谱的整形飞秒激光转动动力学调控方法,通过脉冲整形技术调控激发脉冲的光谱相位,从而实现对飞秒激光作用下转动态相干激发过程中复原信号及转动布居数的调控. 研究了飞秒激光旋转相干光谱对激光频谱相位的响应机制,突出了飞秒激光频谱相位在气相分子转动态相干激发中的重要作用. 为飞秒激光作用下生物大分子和团簇鉴别及结构探测研究提供了新的参考.     

Highly sensitive, single-shot characterization for pulse widths from 0.4 to 85 ps using electro-optic shearing interferometry

Single-shot characterization using electro-optic shearing interferometry (EOSI) is shown for pulse widths ranging from their transform limit (0.4 ps) to 200x their limit (85 ps). In EOSI, the spectral phase is reconstructed by interfering two spectrally sheared replicas of the pulse under test, where the shear is produced by applying linear temporal-phase modulation. We present a new reconstruction algorithm for accurately characterizing chirped pulses, even if the pulse extends beyond the linear region of the phase modulation. Furthermore, since EOSI does not rely on nonlinear optical processes, it requires only 1 nJ pulse energies for all pulse widths, corresponding to a single-shot sensitivity 1000x higher than previously demonstrated.     

基于自衍射效应的自参考光谱干涉方法的研究

研究一种基于非线性透明光学介质中的自衍射和自参考光谱干涉的新方法来进行飞秒激光脉冲测量. 实验中, 基于此新方法设计一种简单装置, 对800 nm 中心波长, 约40 fs 近无啁啾飞秒激光脉冲进行测量, 并与自参考光谱相干电场重建法测量结果进行比较, 得到了一致的结果. 此新方法与相应的装置结构简单, 可以对深紫外到中红外光谱范围的飞秒脉冲进行测量. 关键词： 飞秒激光脉冲 自参考光谱干涉 自衍射 脉冲测量     

Direct time-response measurement of high-speed optical modulators based on stretched-pulse interferometry

A simple technique for the direct measurement of the complex temporal response of a high-speed electro-optic (EO) modulator is proposed. This technique recovers the amplitude and phase temporal profiles of an instantaneous modulation over the duration of a chirped pulse (obtained by linear dispersion) using Fourier-transform interferometry, and it exploits the time-to-frequency mapping induced by the pulse dispersion process. The method can be implemented by using either time- or frequency-domain interferometric detection, allowing the characterization of modulation bandwidths in the tens-of-gigahertz range. The concept is demonstrated by accurately measuring the complex temporal response of a 2.5 Gbps intensity EO modulator.     

Time resolved spectral interferometry for single shot femtosecond characterization

Time resolved spectral interferometry is applied to femtosecond pulse coherent measurement. A new configuration that can be directly applied to single shot detection is presented. The efficiency of this self-referenced real-time passive technique is experimentally demonstrated during the characterization of chirped pulses. Additionally, we quantitatively retrieve the spectral phase shift which is associated to the propagation through a F4 glass parallel plate. Numerical results are also reported showing examples of complex pulse characterization. Finally, limitations of the technique are discussed.     

直接相位调制产生周期性线性啁啾脉冲特性研究

提出一种利用周期性抛物线调制信号对光脉冲进行相位调制以获得周期性线性啁啾脉冲的方法, 并对其进行了数值模拟与实验研究. 数值模拟结果表明: 增益饱和效应、群速度色散以及同步误差对啁啾脉冲的时间-光谱特性影响较大; 自相位调制对啁啾脉冲的影响较小. 实验获得了0.52 nm带宽的周期性线性啁啾脉冲, 与模拟结果符合较好. 实验结果同时表明装置中存在较大的偏振模色散, 导致幅频效应较大, 后续的研究中需加入对此的考虑. 模拟及实验研究表明: 直接相位调制是一种新型的可方便地获得周期性线性啁啾脉冲的方法, 其在光谱色散平滑中具有潜在应用. 关键词： 直接相位调制 周期性线性啁啾脉冲 幅频效应     

Frequency resolved optical gating in the UV using the electronic Kerr effect

A phase-sensitive single-shot autocorrelator (FROG) for the UV spectral region based on the electronic Kerr effect is demonstrated. Since the Kerr shutter technique leads to a third-order autocorrelation function, information about pulse asymmetries and pulse structures along with the temporal phase can be obtained.     

Interferometric technique for measuring broadband ultrashort pulses at the sampling limit

We present a new technique for measuring ultrashort optical pulses by use of spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction that is suitable for large bandwidth pulses. The method does not require generation of a replica of the pulse to be measured and encodes the spectral phase information in a spatial interference pattern. A major advantage of this method is that the spectral sampling saturates the Whittaker-Shannon bound. Moreover, the technique allows for the characterization of some types of space-time coupling. An experimental demonstration of the technique is presented.     

Three-dimensional spatiotemporal pulse characterization with an acousto-optic pulse shaper and a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor

We demonstrate a simplified arrangement for spatiotemporal ultrashort pulse characterization called Hartmann-Shack assisted, multidimensional, shaper-based technique for electric-field reconstruction. It employs an acousto-optic pulse shaper in combination with a second-order nonlinear crystal and a Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. The shaper is used as a tunable bandpass filter, and the wavefronts and intensities of quasimonochromatic spectral slices of the pulse are obtained using the Hartmann-Shack wavefront sensor. The wavefronts and intensities of the spectral slices are related to one another using shaper-assisted frequency-resolved optical gating measurements, performed at particular points in the beam. This enables a three-dimensional reconstruction of the amplitude and phase of the pulse. We present some example pulse measurements and discuss the operating parameters of the device.