The effects of noise on ultrashort-optical-pulse measurement using SPIDER

We have studied the accuracy of ultrashort-pulse reconstruction using SPIDER (spectral phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction) with noisy data. Specifically, we have looked at the effects of additive noise, multiplicative noise, and quantization of the interferogram on the reconstruction of the intensity and phase, and discovered that the inversion routine is relatively insensitive to noise. In particular, with 10% additive noise, SPIDER is able to recover the optical phase to an accuracy of approximately 0.04 radians and recover the intensity pulse shape to an accuracy of approximately 1.5%. Further, we have identified the optimal parameters for pulse reconstruction from noisy data with which SPIDER should operate.