Frequency-resolved optical gating: the state of the art

Summary form only given. Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating (FROG) can completely measure ultrashort laser pulses in almost every situation. We have recently introduced a remarkably simple SHG FROG device that overcomes essentially all of the alignment difficulties of pulse-measurement devices. First, we replace the usual beam splitter, delay line, and beam combining optics with a single element, a Fresnel biprism. Second, we use a thick SHG crystal, which not only gives considerably more signal, but also simultaneously replaces the spectrometer. The resulting device, which we call GRating-Eliminated No-nonsense Observation of Ultrafast Incident Laser Light E-fields (GRENOUILLE), has zero sensitive alignment degrees of freedom and hence is extremely simple to align.