Real-Time Time–Frequency Imaging of Ultrashort Laser Pulses Using an Echelon Mirror

Abstract

We demonstrate real-time time–frequency imaging for the autocorrelation traces of ultrashort laser pulses using an echelon mirror fabricated on a Ni block with 500 steps; the echelon mirror is employed to generate spatially encoded time delays for the probe pulses. By using the frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) technique with the echelon mirror, the time–frequency images of ultrashort laser pulses were successfully mapped in real-time. The chirp characteristics of the laser pulses were also evaluated with the phase-retrieval procedure on a single-shot basis. Our technique provides significant advantages over conventional autocorrelation and FROG techniques, such as single-shot detection of time–frequency images, a small spot size at a nonlinear crystal, chirp-free characteristics of echelon mirrors, and ultrafast measurement capabilities by simply replacing the nonlinear crystal with samples. Hence, we believe that it becomes a powerful spectroscopic tool for monitoring ultrashort laser pulses and for investigating ultrafast dynamics of materials.