Determination of the pulse response from intensity autocorrelation measurements of ultrashort laser pulses

Abstract A new method for obtaining the pulse from a measured autocorrelation trace is suggested. This method is not dependent upon assuming a certain pulse shape, but calculates directly the resulting pulse using Fourier and Hilbert transformations under the assumption of minimum phase behavior of the optical pulse. The difference between the calculated and theoretical pulsewidth is less than 10% for commonly used pulse shapes. The method has been used to calculate pulses in the picosecond regime generated by semiconductor lasers.