Spatiotemporal Metrology of Broadband Optical Pulses

Accurately characterizing the field of broadband optical pulses is required for developing new optical sources, performing successful experiments, and interpreting experimental results. Temporal diagnostics for short optical pulses are now well established. The most recent developments in ultrafast metrology focus on determining the field as a function of time (conversely frequency) and space, potentially revealing the field's nonhomogeneity and coupling between these variables. After a review of common situations where a nonhomogeneous spatiotemporal field is used as a tool or is the outcome of nonideal conditions, historical and state-of-the-art techniques for spatiotemporal ultrafast metrology are described. The different classes of techniques demonstrate the richness of the fundamental and technical developments in this domain.