Temporal characterization of femtosecond laser pulses using tunneling ionization in the UV, visible, and mid-IR ranges

Abstract

To generalize the applicability of the temporal characterization technique called “tunneling ionization with a perturbation for the time-domain observation of an electric field” (TIPTOE), the technique is examined in the multicycle regime over a broad wavelength range, from the UV to the IR range. The technique is rigorously analyzed first by solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation. Then, experimental verification is demonstrated over an almost 5-octave wavelength range at 266, 1800, 4000 and 8000 nm by utilizing the same nonlinear medium – air. The experimentally obtained dispersion values of the materials used for the dispersion control show very good agreement with the ones calculated using the material dispersion data and the pulse duration results obtained for 1800 and 4000 nm agree well with the frequency-resolved optical gating measurements. The universality of TIPTOE arises from its phase-matching-free nature and its unprecedented broadband operation range.

On-chip sampling of optical fields with attosecond resolution

“…While other direct time-domain optical sampling techniques for visible and near-infrared optical pulses currently exist 10,[12][13][14][15]17 , they require µJ-to mJ-level pulse energies, bulky apparatus, and/or vacuum enclosures. By providing a compact, chip-scale platform that enables sub-cycle, field-sensitive detection of subto few-fJ optical waveforms in ambient conditions, devices similar to those discussed in this work could find applications such as phase-resolved spectroscopy and imaging, and could have an impact in a variety of fields such as biology, medicine, food-safety, gas sensing, and drug discovery.…”

“…Despite these compelling results, scaling such techniques into the near-IR and visible spectral regions has remained challenging. While the manipulation of attosecond electron wave packet emission 10,12,13 and attosecond streaking in the visible to near-IR spectral regions [14][15][16] have proven to be viable paths towards direct optical-field sampling in the time-domain, these techniques are seldom accessible, requiring large driving pulse energies, and accordingly, large laser amplifier systems, bulky apparatuses, and in some cases vacuum environments [10][11][12]17 .…”

“…Due to the strong nonlinearity of the emission process, the electron bursts generated in the device are deeply sub-cycle and on the order of several hundred attoseconds for the case of near-IR fields 23,25 . The weak incident signal field E S (t) is similarly modified to create a weak local signal field E As demonstrated by Cho et al 13 , a short optical driving pulse in combination with a highly-nonlinear, sub-cycle emission process allows for field-resolved sampling of the signal pulse. For calculating the impact of E S (t), on the total emission, a linearized small-signal model can be used.…”

Kramers–Kronig Relations – Supplementary Technique to the Time-Domain Spectroscopy

“…different sizes (lengths). This proposal is a further development of the terahertz time-domain spectroscopy method [6] over the optical wavelength range, which is supported by recent advances in femtosecond pulse registration technique [7].…”

Reconstruction algorithm for tunneling ionization with a perturbation for the time-domain observation of an electric-field

“…A novel approach called tunneling ionization with a perturbation for the time-domain observation of an electric-eld (TIPTOE) was recently demonstrated [9][10][11][12][13] . Unlike the conventional techniques, the TIPTOE method utilizes the extreme nonlinearity of ionization.…”