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Hardware for Building FROG Devices

Stefan Linden and myself in Kuhl's group at the Max-Planck-Institute for solid state research in Stuttgart are using a homemade autocorrelator. We are using a 300 micron thick Type I BBO crystal cut at 29 deg internal angle. We are sending the SHG beam into a 64 cm Jobin Yvon monochromator, using a 600 lines/mm grating. To read out the spectra, we are using an EG&G 1412 array which we cool down to -20 deg C using a watercooled Peltier element. Our typical readout times for one FROG spectrogram are around 1/2 hour, but this gives very accurate measurements. (We really do average a lot).

Dr. Harald Giessen
Department of Physics - Semiconductor Optics
Philipps-University
Marburg, Germany
Web Page

1. Camera/spectrograph:

• Oriel MS 127i Imaging spectrograph, model 77480 equipped with a 16 bit
• Princeton LN cooled CCD camera (1152 x 298 px), ST-138 controller - the typical readout time is in the order of 10 seconds for the maximum resolution, but can be reduced by grouping the pixels.

2. Computer/interface:

• MAC Power PC 7100/66, GPIB interface

3. Data Acqusition Software:

• IPLab Spectrum imaging software (v 3.1.1) for the Macintosh - a great, convenient data acquisition and pre-analysis software with good scripting and image transformation capabilities. My only problem is the special text output data file format of IPLab, which always contains a header, not compatible directly with the Femtosoft products.

Csaba TOTH
University of California, San Diego
Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry
La Jolla, CA
Web Page

The companies that I like for cameras are Photometrics and Princeton Instruments. The produce a number of expensive but excellent cameras with up to 18-bits of resolution. (I'd always use at least 12-bits of resolution if I could). Cohu and Hammamatsu also make a wide variety of good cameras. Exactly which camera people want will depend on what else they want to do with it and what wavelength they want to work at. The only thing I'd add is that every really good CCD camera (that is like a nitrogen cooled 18-bit camera that usually comes with its own plug-in board) that I know of has awful data acquisition software. Controlling these cameras can be a pain. If you hear of one that people think is easy to use, LET ME KNOW.

I'm actually not sure what framegrabber we use. I think it is IPlab software, but since we use Macintosh computers, no one else will probably want our boards anyway. Most of the GPIB boards that I use are all National Instruments boards, and I've been happy with them.

Spex and Acton Research sell marvelous spectrometers often with cameras. At least the hardware (actual spectrometer) is great. Again, I think the software is a pain. The control pad on the Spex 270M spectrometer is horrible, and I've had trouble with the LabView drivers at times.

Anonymous

In Lund, the laser pulses to be diagnosed are about 100 fs, 2 TW and have a centre wavelength 800 nm. The cross section FWHM is about 25 mm. The repetition rate is 10 Hz. We are right now constructing a Table of Continuous Diagnostics, which will include a beam profiler, a spectrum analyzer, a single-shot third-order autocorrelator and a single-shot TG FROG.

The TG FROG samples pulses that have been reduced in size in a 5:1 reversed telescope. The pulse energy is about 0.65 mJ. Beamsplitters and optics are of 1"-type.

Hardware:

• Silver mirrors.
• 33/67 and 50/50 beamsplitters 1 mm thick UVFS, dielectric specially manufactured by EKSMA.
• Three translators with resolution of about 2 microns (the resolution could be better).
• Focusing cylinder lens, Achromatic with 25x25 mm clear aperture, 250 mm focal length.
• Nonlinear medium: 0.5 mm BK7 window. Simple, cheap and effective.
• Lots of apertures and stuff to filter out signal
• Spectrometer:
  • ORIEL MS127i
  • Ruled grating blazed at 750 nm, 1200 lines/mm
  • Input slit is 12 mm high and 120 microns broad
  • f / # = f / 3.7
  • Input focal length 127 mm
  • Astigmatism-corrected image-field is 25.4x7 mm, corresponding to 120 nm x about 800 fs with an interpulse angle of about 1.2 degrees
  • The delay axis is limited by the 7 mm output plane (problematic).
  • The spectral resolution is unnecessarily high.
• CCD-camera:
  • The image plane is imaged on a CCD-chip using an objective.
  • Model: Spectroscopy Instruments GmbH
  • Chip: 512x512 back-illuminated SX-TE/CCD-512TKB/D
  • Pixel size: 24x24 microns
  • The camera unit has a built in shutter
  • The camera is liquid cooled to -70 degrees
  • Comment: Only a part of the chip is used.
• CCD controller unit: ST-130, 16 bit, 150 kHz from Spectroscopy Instruments.
• Software: WinView, WinSpec, FROG 1.51.
• Computer: 486-66, 16 MB RAM
• Comment: The CCD-controller-computer system is slow. The repetition rate is about 0.5 Hz at best. The speed can be increased by binning the chip.

Anders Sjögren
Atomic Physics Division
Lund Institute of Technology
Lund
Sweden

For the regen we use a CLARK commercial PG FROG machine.

For Ti:sapphire oscillators, fiber-compression, etc. we use a multishot SHG FROG arrangement. The delay is actuated by a piezo transducer (Physik Instrumente) and calibrated by He-Ne laser fringes. The spectra for each delay are taken by a PC1000 spectrometer (Ocean Optics). For the measurement of strongly chirped pulses we employ a mechanical delay line (step 0.666 fs, Newport) and scan autocorrelations for discrete wavelengths selected by a DK 120 monochromator (CVI).

Andrius Baltuska
Chemical Physics, University of Groningen
Groningen,The Netherlands

If you would like to add your hardware configuration to this list, please email Femtosoft with the details of your experimental setup, and we will add it to this page as soon as possible. Thank you!

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