Ultrasensitive direct-field retrieval of femtosecond pulses by modified interferometric field autocorrelation.

We report on spectral phase retrieval of 50 MHz, 374 fs optical pulses at 1560 nm with 28 aJ coupled pulse energy by measuring two modified interferometric field autocorrelation traces using a 5-cm-long periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide. The corresponding sensitivity is 1.1x10(-7) mW(2), improving on the previous record by about 20 times. The same data traces can also be used to retrieve the power spectrum, given that the ratio of powers at two specific wavelengths is known.

[1]  Andrew M. Weiner,et al.  Ultralow-power second-harmonic generation frequency-resolved optical gating using aperiodically poled lithium niobate waveguides [Invited] , 2008 .

[2]  Masatoshi Fujimura,et al.  Highly efficient second-harmonic generation in buried waveguides formed by annealed and reverse proton exchange in periodically poled lithium niobate. , 2002, Optics letters.

[3]  Patrick D. O'Shea,et al.  Highly simplified device for ultrashort-pulse measurement. , 2001, Optics letters.

[4]  José Azaña,et al.  Simple and highly sensitive optical pulse-characterization method based on electro-optic spectral signal differentiation. , 2008, Optics letters.

[5]  C. Dorrer,et al.  Method of optical pulse characterization using sinusoidal optical phase modulations. , 2007 .

[6]  Rick Trebino,et al.  Simple devices for measuring complex ultrashort pulses , 2009 .

[7]  Yaron Silberberg,et al.  Single-pulse coherently controlled nonlinear Raman spectroscopy and microscopy , 2002, Nature.

[8]  I. Walmsley,et al.  Spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction of ultrashort optical pulses. , 1998, Optics letters.

[9]  Martin M Fejer,et al.  Ultrasensitive second-harmonic generation frequency-resolved optical gating by aperiodically poled LiNbO3 waveguides at 1.5 microm. , 2005, Optics letters.

[10]  S.-D. Yang,et al.  400-photon-per-pulse ultrashort pulse autocorrelation measurement with aperiodically poled lithium niobate waveguides at 1.55 /spl mu/m , 2004, Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics, 2004. (CLEO)..

[11]  A. Weiner,et al.  Direct spectral phase retrieval of ultrashort pulses by double modified one-dimensional autocorrelation traces. , 2008, Optics express.

[12]  Matthew E. Anderson,et al.  Simplified spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction by using a thick nonlinear crystal. , 2006, Optics letters.

[13]  A. Weiner,et al.  Optical arbitrary waveform processing of more than 100 spectral comb lines , 2007 .