Measuring few-cycle laser pulses: A comparative study between dispersionscan and FROG

Proper femtosecond pulse characterisation plays an important part in any ultrafast optics experiment. In the last decades, several methods have been developed for this purpose. Dispersion-scan (or d-scan) is a recent and straightforward technique that can be used for the simultaneous compression and complete characterisation of any laser system containing a pulse compressor with known dispersive characteristics, simply by adding a spectrally resolved second harmonic generation (SHG) stage. Given its potential, a systematic comparison with more mature and established techniques is important to ascertain possible limitations, advantages and to compare the corresponding experimental workflow. In this work we make a systematic comparison between SHG d-scan and SHG FROG in the few-cycle regime.