• Advanced Photonics
  • Vol. 1, Issue 5, 056001 (2019)
Peng Wang1, Xiong Shen1, Jun Liu1、2、3、*, and Ruxin Li1、2、3、*
Author Affiliations
  • 1Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, State Key Laboratory of High Field Laser Physics, Shanghai, China
  • 2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Center of Materials Science and Optoelectronics Engineering, Beijing, China
  • 3Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics, CAS Center for Excellence in Ultra-intense Laser Science, Shanghai, China
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    DOI: 10.1117/1.AP.1.5.056001 Cite this Article Set citation alerts
    Peng Wang, Xiong Shen, Jun Liu, Ruxin Li. Single-shot fourth-order autocorrelator[J]. Advanced Photonics, 2019, 1(5): 056001 Copy Citation Text show less

    Abstract

    Temporal contrast (TC) is one of the most important parameters of an ultrahigh intense laser pulse. The third-order autocorrelator or cross correlator has been widely used in the past decades to characterize the TC of an ultraintense laser pulse. A novel and simple single-shot fourth-order autocorrelator (FOAC) to characterize the TC with higher time resolution and better pulse contrast fidelity in comparison to third-order correlators is proposed. The single-shot fourth-order autocorrelation consists of a frequency-degenerate four-wave mixing process and a sum-frequency mixing process. The proof-of-principle experiments show that a dynamic range of ~1011 compared with the noise level, a time resolution of ~160 fs, and a time window of 65 ps can successfully be obtained using the single-shot FOAC, which is to-date the highest dynamic range with simultaneously high time resolution for single-shot TC measurement. Furthermore, the TC of a laser pulse from a petawatt laser system is successfully measured in single shot with a dynamic range of about 2 × 1010 and simultaneously a time resolution of 160 fs.
    S2(τ)=I(t)I(tτ)dt,(1)

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    S3(τ)=I2(t)I(tτ)dt,(2)

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    S4(τ)=I3(t)I(tτ)dt,(3)

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    Peng Wang, Xiong Shen, Jun Liu, Ruxin Li. Single-shot fourth-order autocorrelator[J]. Advanced Photonics, 2019, 1(5): 056001
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