Electro-optic Fourier transform chronometry of pulsed quantum light

TL;DR

This paper introduces Fourier transform chronometry, a novel technique for measuring the temporal envelope of ultrashort optical pulses and single photon light without time-resolved detection, by analyzing frequency autocorrelation.

Contribution

It presents a new method for temporal envelope measurement using frequency autocorrelation, extending Fourier-transform spectrometry principles to ultrashort pulse characterization.

Findings

Successfully measured classical and single photon pulse envelopes

Demonstrated the technique's effectiveness without time-resolved detectors

Extended Fourier-transform spectrometry to time-domain measurements

Abstract

The power spectrum of an optical field can be acquired without a spectrally resolving detector by means of Fourier-transform spectrometry, based on measuring the temporal autocorrelation of the optical field. Analogously, we here perform temporal envelope measurements of ultrashort optical pulses without time resolved detection. We introduce the technique of Fourier transform chronometry, where the temporal envelope is acquired by measuring the frequency autocorrelation of the optical field in a linear interferometer. We apply our technique, which is the time-frequency conjugate measurement to Fourier-transform spectrometry, to experimentally measure the pulse envelope of classical and single photon light pulses.