title: Measurement of the intensity and phase of ultraweak, ultrashort laser pulses.
abstract: We show that frequency-resolved optical gating combined with spectral interferometry yields an extremely sensitive and general method for temporal characterization of nearly arbitrarily weak ultrashort pulses even when the reference pulses is not transform limited. We experimentally demonstrate measurement of the full time-dependent intensity and phase of a train of pulses with an average energy of 42 zeptojoules (42 x 10(-21) J), or less than one photon per pulse.
authors.forename: D N
authors.initials: DN
authors.lastname: Fittinghoff
authors.forename: J L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Bowie
authors.forename: J N
authors.initials: JN
authors.lastname: Sweetser
authors.forename: R T
authors.initials: RT
authors.lastname: Jennings
authors.forename: M A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Krumbüugel
authors.forename: K W
authors.initials: KW
authors.lastname: Delong
authors.forename: R
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Trebino
authors.forename: I A
authors.initials: IA
authors.lastname: Walmsley