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The past 30 years have seen spectacular progress in the development of techniques for measuring the complete temporal field, and even the complete spatiotemporal field, of ultrashort laser pulses. The challenge has been to measure a pulse without the use of a shorter event or an independent known reference pulse, neither of which is typically available. We begin with autocorrelation, the first such "self-referenced" pulse-measurement method ever proposed, which measures only a rough pulse length, and we describe its limitations. One such limitation is the presence of a somewhat unintuitive "coherent artifact," which occurs for complicated pulses and also when averaging over a train of pulses whose shapes vary from pulse to pulse. We then describe the most important modern techniques capable of measuring the complete temporal intensity and phase of even complicated ultrashort pulses, as well as their ability (or inability) to measure such unstable pulse trains. A pulse reliably measured with such a device can then be used as a reference pulse in conjunction with another technique, such as spectral interferometry or holography, to measure pulses otherwise unmeasurable by a self-referenced technique. Examples include techniques for measuring low-intensity pulse(s) and for measuring the complete spatiotemporal intensity and phase of arbitrary pulse(s). This Tutorial is limited to well-established, proven methods, but other methods whose description proves instructive will be discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examine the characteristics and limitations of GRENOUILLE, a simple and compact implementation of the second-harmonic-generation (SHG) frequency-resolved-optical-gating (FROG) technique. We show that it can be made to operate effectively over a relatively wide range of pulse lengths and wavelengths. We also describe procedures for its design and calibration, and we discuss the use of arbitrary nonlinear SHG crystals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Discusses the generation, measurement and modeling of continuum generation from a relatively short 8-millimeter-long microstructure fiber pumped by 40-femtosecond pulses at 816 nanonmeter in the near infrared. Use of cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating to measure the spectral intensity and phase of the output continuum; Output temporal intensity; Temporal pulse breakup; Soliton fission; Spectral broadening process.

We measure the pulse delay and spectral phase and transmission modulations for ultra-short pulses transmitted through two-dimensional arrays of nano-apertures placed both periodically to form a photonic crystal and randomly on a silver film. The observed features and the physical mechanisms are discussed in the context of wave propagation through linear systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]