Swamp Optics--Tutorials

GRENOUILLE products can be purchased directly from Swamp Optics! See How to Buy for details and contact information.

GRENOUILLE received the 2005 Circle of Excellence award as one of the twenty-five most technically innovative optics products of the year!

GRENOUILLE's design was recognized with a prestigious R&D100 Award

Swamp Optics Tutorials


	Intensity Autocorrelation Invented in the 1960s, intensity autocorrelation was the first technique used to measure the intensity vs. time of an ultrashort laser pulse. Autocorrelation uses a laser pulse to measure itself, splitting the pulse into two, variably delaying one with respect to the other, and spatially overlapping them in some instantaneously responding nonlinear optical medium. This tutorial examines the characteristics and inherent shortcomings of conventional autocorrelation-based pulse analysis. Read the tutorial Download the Intensity Autocorrelation tutorial in PDF format

	FROG Frequency-resolved-optical-gating (FROG) is the foremost technique for completely characterizing an ultrashort laser pulse in time. Since its introduction about a decade ago, FROG has evolved into a marvelously general and powerful technique for measuring ultrashort laser pulses. FROG is any autocorrelation-type measurement in which the autocorrelator signal beam is spectrally resolved. Instead of measuring the autocorrelator signal energy vs. delay, which yields an autocorrelation, FROG involves measuring the signal spectrum vs. delay. This tutorial introduces the FROG technique, its capabilities, and its applications for characterizing modern ultrashort laser pulses. Read the tutorial Download the FROG tutorial in PDF format

	GRENOUILLE A simplified FROG device, GRENOUILLE combines full-information pulse measurement with experimental simplicity. GRENOUILLE operates alignment-free, requires only a few simple optical elements, and features an operating range that nicely includes that of most ultrafast Ti:Sapphire lasers and amplifiers. This tutorial examines GRENOUILLE's operational and measurement sensitivity details, including its ability to measure the elusive spatio-temporal distortions—like spatial chirp and pulse-front tilt—common to ultrafast lasers. Read the tutorial Download the GRENOUILLE tutorial in PDF format

	Spatio-temporal Distortions Ultrashort laser pulses lead difficult lives. They’re routinely dispersed, stretched, amplified, and eventually compressed to, hopefully, their shortest possible width. Whether the source is an oscillator, a regen, or a high-power amplifier, ultrashort pulses undergo massive manipulations to become so short. But at what price? Spatio-temporal distortions. This tutorial present these and other typically encountered pulse distortions and the importance of accurate observation and characterization. Read the tutorial Download the Spatio-temporal Distortions tutorial in PDF format

	Dispersion & GRENOUILLE Specs GRENOUILLE specifications have the interesting property that they vary with wavelength. While all optical devices do this to some extent, GRENOUILLE does it a bit more. This tutorial explains how GRENOUILLE is affected and what you need to know about it. Read the tutorial Download the Dispersion & GRENOUILLE Specs tutorial in PDF format

	Pulse Compression The single-prism pulse compressor is a compact, alignment-free, easy-to-work-with device that is also inexpensive—about half the price of other commercially available pulse compressors. Read the tutorial Download Optics Express paper on Pulse Compression in PDF format

	SPIDER SPIDER is a method for measuring ultrashort pulses based on spectral shearing interferometry. It, however, is becoming increasingly controversial due to its extreme sensitivity to the separation of an internal double pulse, which needs to be known with few-attosecond (or better) accuracy for most measurements. Error in the measurement of this separation yields error in the measured linear chirp. This tutorial covers the basics of SPIDER and provides the mathematics behind this important calibration issue. Read the tutorial Download the SPIDER tutorial in PDF format

Pulse Compression

SPIDER