Characterization of polarization shaped ultraviolet femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract

We present full vector-field characterization of amplitude, phase, and polarization controlled femtosecond laser pulses in the ultraviolet (UV) with a method termed DFG-XTURTLE. It combines the recently developed technique of tomographic ultrafast retrieval of transverse light E-fields (TURTLE) with the well-established cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating (XFROG) amplitude and phase retrieval algorithm. Three individual linear projections at 0°, 45°, and 90° of the vector-shaped field in the UV are frequency mixed with a well-characterized reference field at 800 nm and the generated frequency-resolved difference-frequency cross correlations in the visible are analyzed with a standard XFROG algorithm. The TURTLE search algorithm then establishes the full vector field of the UV pulses by finding the correct phase relationship between the 0° and 90° projections to reconstruct the projection at 45°. To retrieve the interpulse phase of temporally well-separated pulses, additional spectra must be taken. The handedness of shaped pulses can also be assigned with additional measurements.