Abstract

Mode-locked dye lasers have been developed that provide an extremely stable and accurately characterized output¹. The very high pulses to pulse reproducibility, combined with an accurate knowledge of the pulse waveform and phase, is an asset in any experiment involving nonlinear effect, and requiring precise temporal resolution. The high accuracy in pulse diagnostic led for instance to the determination of time constants much shorter than the pulse duration in an experiment of degenerate four wave mixing² . In general however, because of the low intensity of the source, this advantage is compromised against higher pulse energy by associating an amplifier with the source. It is demonstrated here that optimization and long integration times with simple conventional up-conversion techniques are sufficient to time resolve events as weak as the fluorescence of a dye with femtosecond resolution.

© 1986 Optical Society of America