Second-harmonic frequency-resolved optical gating covering two and a half optical octaves using a single spectrometer

We report the measurement of laser pulse shapes covering the range 580–3250 nm using second-harmonic generation frequency-resolved optical gating equipped with a single inexpensive visible-NIR miniature spectrometer and a single pair of homemade broadband beam splitters. Our experimental scheme exploits frequency up-conversion by BBO crystals and appropriate corrections for dispersion, beam splitter filtering and phase-matching efficiency. The signal and idler waves from a commercial optical parametric amplifier pumped by a Ti:Sapphire laser (26 fs, 1 kHz) have been characterized as well as their second harmonic. The pulse shapes out of a commercial difference frequency generation module mixing signal and idler have also been measured up to 3250 nm. The resulting pulses range from 20 to 120 fs, and their chirp characteristics are also exposed. Our approach is demonstrated over most of the doubling crystal transparency range.