All-optical sampling of few-cycle infrared pulses using tunneling in a solid

• Published in: Photonics research (Washington, DC) DC), 2021-05, Vol.9 (6)
• Main Authors: Liu, Yangyang, Gholam-Mirzaei, Shima, Beetar, John E., Nesper, Jonathan, Yousif, Ahmed, Nrisimhamurty, M., Chini, Michael
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
• ISSN: 2327-9125; 2327-9125

Recent developments in ultrafast laser technology have resulted in novel few-cycle sources in the mid-infrared. Accurately characterizing the time-dependent intensities and electric field waveforms of such laser pulses is essential to their applications in strong-field physics and attosecond pulse generation, but this remains a challenge. Recently, it was shown that tunnel ionization can provide an ultrafast temporal “gate” for characterizing high-energy few-cycle laser waveforms capable of ionizing air. Here, we show that tunneling and multiphoton excitation in a dielectric solid can provide a means to measure lower-energy and longer-wavelength pulses, and we apply the technique to characterize microjoule-level near- and mid-infrared pulses. The method lends itself to both all-optical and on-chip detection of laser waveforms, as well as single-shot detection geometries.