Abstract

In the recent years, there has been a rapid progress in the field of optical pulse characterization. Techniques such as frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) [1] and spectral interferometry for direct electric-field reconstruction (SPIDER) [2] allow for a full characterization of amplitude and phase of a pulse and have been demonstrated down to a pulse duration of about 5 fs. So far, all full characterization techniques have yielded a spatially averaged picture of the pulse. In certain laser systems, however, a spectral dependence of the beam profile has been observed. One example of such a substructure is the frequency-dependent mode size effect in Kerr-lens mode-locked lasers [3]

© 2000 IEEE