Spatio-temporal characterization of optical waveforms

Pulse characterization technology to characterize space-time couplings exists but most technqiues are not suiatable for few-cycle pulses. A lot of recent work has been focussed on combining modern few-cycle pulse characterization methods with spatial phase measurements based on a filtered reference pulse.This work reviews current state of the art in this field and also show recent results and progress in the self-referenced characterization of near single cycle pulses with space-time couplings. Using SEA-F-SPIDER the spatio-temporal electric field of a laser pulse can be reconstructed without the need for a reference pulse. In the current implementation we can recover the field E(x,t) in one spatial dimension. Measurements of ultrafast wavefront rotation and pulse front tilt in pulses generated in hollow fiber compressors are presented. The paper also discusses application in OPCPA and NOPA systems where the amplified pulses are expected to carry a significant amount of space-time couplings. Furthermore, avenues towards the extension of the technique to both spatial dimensions for a complete reconstruction of E(x,y,t) are discussed.