Sub femto-joule sensitive single-shot OPA-XFROG and its application in study of white-light supercontinuum generation

Abstract

We report a new design of single-shot cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating (XFROG) with sub femto-joule sensitivity for complete field characterization of ultrashort optical pulse using a 400-nm-pumped type-I noncollinear optical parametric amplifier. Optical parametric gain as high as 10(8) with 0.8-0.9 femto-joules sensitivity had been demonstrated with an un-cooled CCD in this study. The experimental FROG traces have been successfully retrieved with an error no worse than 0.0014. The device had been to be useful for studying the generation mechanism of white-light supercontinuum (WLS). (C) 2004 Optical Society of America.