Enhanced dynamic range spatio-spectral metrology of few-cycle laser pulses

Abstract

Accurate spatio-temporal and spatio-spectral metrology is critical to the characterization and use of ultra-short, highpower lasers.The emergence of few cycle pulses, with bandwidths of tens or hundreds of nanometers, poses a significant challenge to existing metrology techniques.This is due to a combination of large discrepancies in sensor sensitivity and significant variations in the pulse's spectral intensity at those wavelengths.In this paper, the authors propose spectral filtering and stitching of the measurements as a robust, simple solution that enhances the dynamic range of the measurements, allowing accurate few-cycle pulse reconstruction.This enhancement is demonstrated using INSIGHT -the most commonly used spatio-spectral measurement device -as well as using IMPALA and spatially resolved Fourier transform spectrometry.