An apparatus and method to measure optical intensity and phase of one or several light pulses is described. The apparatus 200 combines a spectrally resolved interferometric asymmetric single-shot optical autocorrelator and imaging spectrograph. The asymmetric design of the optical autocorrelator based on second harmonic 160, 162 generation eliminates time-direction ambiguity, while a spectrally resolved interferometric pattern allows the performance of self-check and self-calibration of the apparatus and substantially improves convergence, robustness and reliability of the computational retrieval algorithm.
APPARATUS AND METHOD FOR MEASURING INTENSITY AND PHASE OF A LIGHT PULSE WITH AN INTERFEROMETRIC ASYMMETRIC SINGLE-SHOT AUTOCORRELATOR