Abstract

A novel pulse characterization method is presented, favorably combining interferometric frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) and time-domain ptychography. This new variant is named ptychographic-interferometric frequency-resolved optical gating ($\pi$FROG). The measurement device is simple, bearing similarity to standard second-harmonic FROG, yet with a collinear beam geometry and an added bandpass filter in one of the correlator arms. The collinear beam geometry allows tight focusing and circumvents possible geometrical distortion effects of noncollinear methods, making $\pi$FROG especially suitable for the characterization of unamplified few-cycle pulses. Moreover, the direction-of-time ambiguity afflicting most second-order FROG variants is eliminated. Possible group delay dispersion of pulses leads to a characteristic tilt in the $\pi$FROG traces, allowing the detection of uncompensated dispersion without a retrieval. Using nanojoule, three-cycle pulses at 800 nm, the $\pi$FROG method is tested, and the results are compared with spectral phase interferometry for direct electric field reconstruction measurements. Measured pulse durations agree within a fraction of a femtosecond. As a further test, the $\pi$FROG measurements are repeated with added group delay dispersion, and found to accurately reproduce the dispersion computed with Sellmeier equations.

© 2017 Optical Society of America

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