Electro-optic characterization of synthesized infrared-visible light fields

Enrico Ridente,Ferenc Krausz,Dmitry Zimin,Mikhail Mamaikin,Matthew Weidman,Matthias F Kling,Nicholas Karpowicz,Vladimir Pervak,Najd Altwaijry

doi:10.1038/s41467-022-28699-6

Abstract

The measurement and control of light field oscillations enable the study of ultrafast phenomena on sub-cycle time scales. Electro-optic sampling (EOS) is a powerful field characterization approach, in terms of both sensitivity and dynamic range, but it has not reached beyond infrared frequencies. Here, we show the synthesis of a sub-cycle infrared-visible pulse and subsequent complete electric field characterization using EOS. The sampled bandwidth spans from 700 nm to 2700 nm (428 to 110 THz). Tailored electric-field waveforms are generated with a two-channel field synthesizer in the infrared-visible range, with a full-width at half-maximum duration as short as 3.8 fs at a central wavelength of 1.7 µm (176 THz). EOS detection of the complete bandwidth of these waveforms extends it into the visible spectral range. To demonstrate the power of our approach, we use the sub-cycle transients to inject carriers in a thin quartz sample for nonlinear photoconductive field sampling with sub-femtosecond resolution.

Highlights

The measurement and control of light field oscillations enable the study of ultrafast phenomena on sub-cycle time scales
The approach enables the synthesis of electric fields with different shapes by changing the chirp and/or CEP of the pulses transmitted by the individual channels and the relative delay between them with sub-cycle accuracy
Most importantly for field synthesis applications, the response function of Electro-optic sampling (EOS) is independent of the CEP of the sampling pulse—as a result, a field synthesis system where the CEP of the synthesized waveform is linked to that of the sampling pulse can be realized while simultaneously keeping the full parameter space available for modification of the generated transient

Summary

Introduction

The measurement and control of light field oscillations enable the study of ultrafast phenomena on sub-cycle time scales. Most importantly for field synthesis applications, the response function of EOS is independent of the CEP of the sampling pulse—as a result, a field synthesis system where the CEP of the synthesized waveform is linked to that of the sampling pulse can be realized while simultaneously keeping the full parameter space available for modification of the generated transient. We generate and characterize subcycle light transients from a three-channel synthesizer, where one channel, in the UV spectral range, provides the sampling pulse for EOS.

Results

Conclusion