Real-time dispersion analyzer of femtosecond laser pulses with use of a spectrally and temporally resolved upconversion technique

We demonstrate a real-time femtosecond-laser-pulse analyzer by using a spectrally and temporally resolved upconversion technique (STRUT) for characterization of the phase and the intensity, The STRUT provides simple but reliable analysis of femtosecond pulses by employing a narrow-bandpass dielectric filter in one arm of a conventional single-shot upconversion autocorrelator and analyzing the spatiotemporal upconversion signal with a monochromator. The resulting spatiotemporal and spatiospectral image presents clear and complete information about femtosecond pulses produced by either oscillators or amplifiers. Characterization of 2-nJ, 60-fs Ti:sapphire oscillator pulses is achieved with 0.5 s data acquisition time and 0.2-s computational time. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America.