Terahertz bandwidth RF spectrum analysis of femtosecond pulses using a chalcogenide chip

We report the first demonstration of the use of an RF spectrum analyser with multi-terahertz bandwidth to measure the properties of femtosecond optical pulses. A low distortion and broad measurement bandwidth of 2.78 THz (nearly two orders of magnitude greater than conventional opto-electronic analyzers) was achieved by using a 6 cm long As(2)S(3) chalcogenide waveguide designed for high Kerr nonlinearity and near zero dispersion. Measurements of pulses as short as 260 fs produced from a soliton-effect compressor reveal features not evident from the pulse's optical spectrum. We also applied an inverse Fourier transform numerically to the captured data to re-construct a time-domain waveform that resembled pulse measurement obtained from intensity autocorrelation.