Measuring the intensity and phase of ultrabroadband continuum

Summary form only given.We have developed a technique for measuring the continuum generated using microstructure optical fiber and have shown that the continuum has well-behaved spectral phase in a /spl sim/25-nm-bandwidth region near 850 nm. Our technique is based on the Temporal Analysis by Dispersing a Pair Of Light E-fields (TADPOLE) and FROG techniques. Our laser is capable of 20-fs pulses with /spl sim/100-nm bandwidths, so about a dozen straightforward measurements could yield the spectral phase for the entire continuum, whether uncompressed or compressed to a single cycle, without the need for extremely thin crystals.