Abstract

It is now routine to characterize the spatial or temporal electric field of light. The characterization of the field as a function of both variables was only recently demonstrated, ^1–2, despite numerous applications since space-time coupling, a situation where the pulse shape is spatially dependent, is inherent to ultrafast optics. In general it is necessary to have both a short-duration temporal gate and spatially-resolved detection to undertake such characterization. For ultrashort pulses, non-stationary filters are most often synthesized using non-linear optics,³ which limits the sensitivity. We demonstrate that space-time coupling can be characterized completely using very sensitive liner, time-stationary optics, without requiring complete characterization of the pulse. We also define and calculate a degree of spatio-temporal uniformity to quantify spacetime coupling.

© 2002 Optical Society of America