Ultrashort pulse characterisation using a scanning Fabry-Perot etalon to rapidly acquire and retrieve a sonogram

Summary form only given. The use of a sonogram to fully characterise ultra-short pulses has greatly developed over recent years. Its capability to characterize a wide range of pulse durations and wavelengths without substantial changes to an-optical arrangement as well as its error-checking ability with the use of marginals makes the technique very robust and extremely appealing. Furthermore, the sonogram´s sensitivity to the sign of,the pulse chirp and, simple implementation using two-photon absorption in photodiodes have been important advantages over other methods. Recent results have shown sonogram acquisition and retrieval rates as high as 0.5 Hz and highlights the requirement for new, faster acquisition techniques. Here we describe a rapid acquisition and retrieval arrangement that uses a scanning Fabry-Perot filter as a frequency bandpass filter to successfully acquire and retrieve a sonogram at a substantially increased rate of -1.7 Hz. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer was used to allow a single-pass regime through the Fabry-Perot etalon.