Single-beam technique for ultrashort pulse characterization based on the nonlinear ellipse rotation signal

Abstract

We present a single-beam method based on the third-order nonlinear-ellipse-rotation (NER) measurement in thick samples to determine the pulse properties, including the duration and linear chirp. Our approach exploits the influence of the intrinsic second-order dispersions of the nonlinear materials, which affect the NER signal as a function of propagation. Two advantages can be highlighted: no delay line is required, and there are no phase-matching issues. To test our method, we characterized ultrafast chirped pulses from a Ti:sapphire amplified laser system and tunable pulses from an optical parametric amplifier using two samples with high dispersions and nonlinearities: SF6 and LaSF-N30 optical glasses.