Pulse front tilt measurement of femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract In this work we report experimental investigations of an intentionally introduced pulse front tilt on femtosecond laser pulses by using an inverted field correlator/interferometer. A reliable criterion for the precision in aligning (in principle) dispersionless systems for manipulating ultrashort pulses is developed, specifically including cases when the pulse front tilt is a result of a desired spatio-temporal coupling. The results obtained using two low-dispersion diffraction gratings are in good qualitative agreement with the data from a previously developed analytical model and from an independent interferometric measurement.