Spectral determination of the amplitude and the phase of intense ultrashort optical pulses

Abstract : We present the results of the spectral analysis of intense ultrashort laser pulses propagating through nonlinear transparent media. We discuss the spectral features characteristic of the self-phase-modulation process, which is the most prominent process during nonguided propagation in the weakly nonlinear regime. We describe an application of automatic pulse phase retrieval based on the Kerr-like nonlinearity.