Characterization of elliptically polarized femtosecond pulses by molecular-alignment-based frequency resolved optical gating

We demonstrated that molecular-alignment-based cross-correlation frequency resolved optical gating (M-XFROG) could be used for complete characterization of elliptically polarized femtosecond pulses by measuring the orthogonal linear polarization components and the additional polarization projection at 45 degree of the target pulse. The electric field orientation, polarization ellipticity angles, and phase information of the target pulse were also obtained. The transiently aligned air molecules functioned as a linear optical gating function in the measurement processes. The validity and robustness of M-XFROG were confirmed by the comparison between the retrieved optical gating function and measured molecular alignment signal in air.