Abstract
We demonstrate that temporally-dependent polarization states of ultrashort laser pulses can be reconstructed in a single shot by use of an angle-multiplexed spatial-spectral interferometry. This is achieved by introducing two orthogonally polarized reference pulses and interfering them with an arbitrarily polarized ultrafast pulse under measurement. A unique calibration procedure is developed for this technique which facilitates the subsequent polarization state measurements. The accuracy of several reconstructed polarization states is verified by comparison with that obtained from an analytic model that predicts the polarization state on the basis of its method of production. Laser pulses with mJ-level energies were characterized via this technique, including a time-dependent polarization state that can be used for polarization-gating of high-harmonic generation for production of attosecond pulses.
Highlights
One major application of femtosecond laser pulses with time-varying polarization is the production of attosecond pulses from high-order harmonic generation (HHG)[7,8] driven by either few-cycle[9] or by many-cycle www.nature.com/scientificreports/
We succinctly present the principle of system calibration developed for angle-multiplexed spatial-spectral interferometry (SSI) and the results obtained with elliptically polarized state and a time-varying polarization state typical for polarization gating of HHG
By introducing two orthogonally polarized reference pulses and interfering them with the corresponding polarization components of the signal pulse, the angle-multiplexed SSI is capable of characterizing the polarization state of a laser pulse in a single-shot measurement
Summary
One major application of femtosecond (fs) laser pulses with time-varying polarization is the production of attosecond pulses from high-order harmonic generation (HHG)[7,8] driven by either few-cycle[9] or by many-cycle www.nature.com/scientificreports/. Since the two reference pulses interfere separately with the two orthogonal polarization components of signal pulse, the generated SSI interferogram contains fringes at two spatial frequencies that can be separated by Fourier filtering and processed separately to obtain their field amplitudes and phases. This angle-multiplexed SSI technique has been demonstrated and used to characterize the relative spectral phase and the spatially variable polarization state of a radially polarized pulse[28]. If the absolute amplitudes and phases of the signal components are needed, each of the reference pulses have to be fully characterized using another self-referenced technique
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