Single-shot characterization of ultrashort light pulses

In the subpicosecond time domain, the characterization and the control of ultrashort light pulses produced by means of femtosecond lasers are important problems. The low repetition rate of laser sources makes classical characterization methods, such as multishot autocorrelators, difficult to use. New different single-shot measurements of the temporal profile and of phase shifts introduced by nonlinear optical phenomena on femtosecond pulses are reported. These techniques are based on spatio-temporal and spectro-temporal transformations.