Development of single-shot frequency-resolved optical gating for characterizing the instantaneous intensity and phase of LFEX laser pulses

Abstract

Frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) is a novel means of measuring the fast motion of a critical density surface during relativistic laser–plasma interaction. Herein, we present a design and demonstration results for a new single-shot FROG system and optical transport system for characterizing the instantaneous intensity and phase at the LFEX (Laser for Fast Ignition Experiment) laser facility at the Institute of Laser Engineering of Osaka University. At LFEX, the laser intensity at the vacuum window is intrinsically high because of two unique properties, namely, the large F-number of the off-axis parabolic mirror and the small radius of the interaction chamber. Consequently, to obtain an accurate FROG trace, attention must be paid to spectrum modulation due to self-phase modulation. The appropriate laser intensity for FROG operation was investigated experimentally, and an optical transport system with an energy attenuator composed of reflective optics was designed to eliminate the concern of spectrum modulation from measurements. A FROG trace recorded at LFEX shot with 161 J energy was reconstructed 100 times using an iterative phase-retrieval algorithm. Despite some differences in structure, the reconstructed spectrum agrees reasonably well with the spectrum obtained by a time-integrated spectrometer. This shows that the developed FROG system and the optical transport system can measure the instantaneous intensity and phase of a laser pulse without spectrum modulation.