title: Coherent artifact in modern pulse measurements.
abstract: We simulate multishot intensity-and-phase measurements of unstable trains of complex ultrashort pulses using second-harmonic-generation (SHG) frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) and spectral-phase interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER). Both techniques fail to see the pulse structure. But FROG yields the correct average pulse duration and suggests the instability by exhibiting significant disagreement between measured and retrieved traces. SPIDER retrieves the correct average spectral phase but significantly underestimates the average pulse duration. In short, SPIDER measures only the coherent artifact. An analytical calculation confirms this last fact.
authors: Georgia Institute of Technology, School of Physics, 837 State St NW, Atlanta, Georgia 30332, USA.
authors: Justin
authors: J
authors: Ratner
authors: Günter
authors: G
authors: Steinmeyer
authors: Tsz Chun
authors: TC
authors: Wong
authors: Randy
authors: R
authors: Bartels
authors: Rick
authors: R
authors: Trebino