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ULTRAFAST OPTICS

The complete optical oscilloscope

Nature Photonics volume 12, pages 190–191 (2018)Cite this article

Observing ultrafast transient dynamics in optics is a challenging task. Two teams in Europe have now independently developed ‘optical oscilloscopes’ that can capture both amplitude and phase information of ultrafast optical signals. Their schemes yield new insights into the nonlinear physics that takes place inside optical fibres.

The ability to observe ultrafast transient dynamics is of considerable importance in optical physics as it can help reveal the underlying mechanisms behind many important phenomena. For example, rich temporal behaviour can be found in supercontinuum generation, modulation instability, optical rogue waves and soliton formation, where optical signals on the femtosecond timescale evolve in a complex and non-repetitive manner. Capturing the full information (amplitude and phase) of such optical signals as they evolve is technically challenging as it imposes several fundamental requirements on the characterization scheme. In particular, a scheme must offer real-time and single-shot operation (no averaging), fine time resolution (~100 fs or less), large time window (>10 ps) and full-field measurement (providing both amplitude and phase information).

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Fig. 1: A complete optical oscilloscope based on full-field temporal imaging demonstrated by Ryczkowski and colleagues4 and Tikan and colleagues5.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan

    Cheng Lei & Keisuke Goda

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  1. Cheng Lei
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  2. Keisuke Goda
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Correspondence to Cheng Lei or Keisuke Goda.

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Lei, C., Goda, K. The complete optical oscilloscope. Nature Photon 12, 190–191 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41566-018-0141-4

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