Spatiotemporal amplitude-and-phase reconstruction by Fourier-transform of interference spectra of high-complex-beams

TL;DR

The paper introduces STARFISH, a compact, alignment-free method using spectral interferometry with a fiber-optic coupler to reconstruct the spatio-temporal amplitude and phase of ultrashort laser pulses, demonstrated on various beam types.

Contribution

A novel, simple, and compact technique for spatio-temporal reconstruction of ultrashort laser pulses using fiber-optic interferometry, improving alignment and reference beam selection.

Findings

Successful experimental characterization of chirped pulses.

Effective reconstruction of convergent, plane-plane, and spherical-plane wave interferences.

Validation of results with simulations.

Abstract

We propose a novel method to reconstruct the spatio-temporal amplitude and phase of the electric field of ultrashort laser pulses using spatially-resolved spectral interferometry. This method is based on a fiber-optic coupler interferometer that has certain advantages in comparison with standard interferometer systems, such as it being alignment-free and selection of the reference beam at a single point. Our technique, which we refer to as STARFISH, offers compactness and simplicity. We report its application to the experimental characterization of chirped pulses and to spatio-temporal reconstructions of a convergent beam as well as plane-plane and spherical-plane waves interferences, which we check with our simulations.