Abstract

One of the most remarkable developments of modern laser technology is the generation of intense laser pulses with less than two optical cycles.¹ The time variation of the electric field in such pulses depends on their absolute phase, that is on the phase of the carrier frequency with respect to the envelope. Because intense laser-matter interactions generally depend on the electric field of the pulse, the absolute phase is important for a number of nonlinear processes. So far no clear evidence of absolute-phase effects has been experimentally measured.

© 2002 Optical Society of America