Page 356 - Phase Space Optics Fundamentals and Applications

CHAPTER11

Phase Space in

Ultrafast Optics

Christophe Dorrer

Laboratory for Laser Energetics, University of Rochester, USA
Ian Wamsley

Department of Physics, University of Oxford, USA

11.1 Introduction
Time scales for dynamical measurements of optical pulses now cover
both the femto- and the attosecond domain, due to the rapid evolu-
tion of ultrafast technology in the last decade. 1–4 Optical frequency
synthesis enables the generation of single-cycle optical pulses with
5
spectral bandwidths of several octaves. Novel light sources, based
on frequency mixing in nonlinear optical structures, are being devel-
oped for imaging applications such as optical coherence tomography
for medical diagnostics. Further, table-top laser systems are now capa-
ble of generating subpicosecond pulsed radiation in the XUV region,
so that attosecond pulses are routinely generated and characterized. 6
These developments presage a host of new applications including at-
toscience of atoms and molecules and new types of time standards
based on precision frequency measurement from the microwave to
the UV. The need for measurement methods for ultrashort optical
pulses is therefore as compelling as ever. New spectral regions need
to be accessed, along with ever briefer durations, as well as pulses
with increasingly complex space-time structure, in order to access
new phenomena and develop new technologies.
Phase-space descriptions of optical pulses, ultrafast processes,
pulse manipulation, and measurement provide both a convenient

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