Abstract
No, this isn’t one of those age-old unresolvable dilemmas, the kind that frustrated ancient Greek philosophers. True, it’s reminiscent of Zeno’s paradox, which considered how finely one may divide distances, rather than durations of time. And it’s equally confounding. But, in fact, the above dilemma is a recently solved optical measurement problem, which, until a few years ago, badly frustrated modern laser scientists.
In order to measure an event in time, you must use a shorter one. But then, to measure the shorter event, you must use an even shorter one. And so on. So, now, how do you measure the shortest event ever created?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
B. Kohler, V. V. Yakovlev, J. Che, J. L. Krause, M. Messina, K. R. Wilson, N. Schwentner, R. M. Whitnell, and Y. Yan, “Quantum Control of Wave Packet Evolution with Tailored Femtosecond Pulses,” Phys. Rev. Lett., vol. 74, pp. 3360–63,1995.
J. C. M. Diels, J. J. Fontaine, I. C. McMichael, and F. Simoni, “Control and Measurement of Ultrashort Pulse Shapes (in Amplitude and Phase) with Femtosecond Accuracy,” Appl. Opt., vol. 24, pp. 1270–82, 1985.
M. Beck and I. A. Walmsley, “The Role of Amplitude and Phase Shaping in the Dispersive-Pulse Regime of a Passively Mode-Locked Dye Laser,” J. Quant. Electron., vol. 28, pp. 2274–84,1992.
I. P. Christov, M. M. Murnane, H. C. Kapteyn, J. P. Zhou, and C. P. Huang, “Fourth-Order Dispersion Limited Solitary Pulses,” Opt. Lett., vol. 19, pp. 1465–67,1994.
J. D. Harvey, J. M. Dudley, P. F. Curley, C. Spielmann, and F. Krausz, “Coherent Effects in a Self-Modelocked Ti:sapphire Laser,” Opt. Lett., vol. 19, pp. 972,1994.
P. Zhou, H. Schulz, and P. Kohns, “Atomic spectroscopy with ultrashort laser pulses using frequency-resolved optical gating,” Opt. Comm., vol. 123, pp. 501–4, 1996.
T. S. Clement, G. Rodriguez, W. M. Wood, and A. J. Taylor, “Characterization of ultrafast interactions with materials through direct measurement of the optical phase,” in Generation, Amplification, and Measurement of Ultrashort Laser Pulses III, vol. 2701: SPIE, 1996, pp. 229–34.
M. Dugan, J. X. Tull, J.-K. Rhee, and W. S. Warren, “High-Resolution Ultrafast Laser Pulse Shaping for Quantum Control and Terabit per Second Communications,” in Ultrafast Phenomena X, vol. 62, P. F. Barbara, J. G. Fujimoto, W. H. Knox, and W. Zinth, Eds. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1996, pp. 26–27.
A. M. Weiner, “Femtosecond Optical Pulse Shaping and Processing,” Progress in Quantum Electronics, 1995.
E. P. Ippen and C. V. Shank, Ultrashort Light Pulses—Picosecond Techniques and Applications. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, 1977.
L. Cohen, “Time-Frequency Distributions—A Review,” Proc. IEEE, vol. 77, pp. 941–81, 1989.
Y. M. Bruck and L. G. Sodin, “On the Ambiguity of the Image Reconstruction Problem,” Opt. Commun., vol. 30, pp. 304–8,1979.
A. Watanabe, S. Tanaka, H. Kobayashi, Y. Ishida, and T. Yajima, “Microcomputer-Based Spectrum-Resolved Second Harmonic Generation Correlator for Fast Measurement of Ultrashort Pulses,” Rev. Sci. Instrum., vol. 56, pp. 2259–62, 1985.
A. Watanabe, H. Saito, Y. Ishida, and T. Yajima, “Computer-Assisted Spectrum-Resolved SHG Auto-correlator for Monitoring Phase Characteristics of Femtosecond Pulses,” Opt. Commun., vol. 63, pp. 320–4,1987.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2000 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Trebino, R. (2000). The Dilemma. In: Frequency-Resolved Optical Gating: The Measurement of Ultrashort Laser Pulses. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1181-6_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-1181-6_1
Publisher Name: Springer, Boston, MA
Print ISBN: 978-1-4613-5432-1
Online ISBN: 978-1-4615-1181-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive