Multiscale control and rapid scanning of time delays ranging from picosecond to millisecond.

Abstract

Femtosecond amplifiers seeded by two independent femtosecond oscillators normally produce amplified pulse pairs with a timing jitter equal to the oscillator period, which is typically around 12 ns for Titanium:Sapphire lasers. Combining Arbitrary-Detuning Asynchronous Optical Sampling (AD-ASOPS) with an appropriate selection of amplified pulses, we demonstrate that the time-delay distribution can be narrowed down to a 25-ps time window, allowing to produce spectral interference fringes for each amplified pulse pair. Subsequent AD-ASOPS determination of the actual time delay with subpicosecond accuracy allows to tailor the delay distribution with an electronic control all the way to the repetition period of the amplifiers. We thus demonstrate rapid scanning of the time delays up to nearly 1 ms with a sub-picosecond accuracy, which makes this method an ideal tool for multiscale pump-probe spectroscopy.