Measuring the spatiotemporal field of ultrashort Bessel-X pulses

Opt Lett. 2009 Aug 1;34(15):2276-8. doi: 10.1364/ol.34.002276.

Abstract

We present direct measurements of the spatiotemporal electric field of an ultrashort Bessel-X pulse generated using a conical lens (axicon). These measurements were made using the linear-optical interferometric technique SEA TADPOLE, which has micrometer spatial resolution and femtosecond temporal resolution. From our measurements, both the superluminal velocity of the Bessel pulse and the propagation invariance of the central spot are apparent. We verified our measurements with simulations.