High-sensitivity optical pulse characterization using Sagnac electro-optic spectral shearing interferometry

An electro-optic spectral shearing interferometer for high-sensitivity optical pulse characterization is described. Two replicas of the test pulse counterpropagate in a Sagnac interferometer with orthogonal polarization states, resulting in two relatively sheared copolarized replicas after temporal phase modulation. The polarization interferometer is intrinsically stable, and its birefringence sets the delay between interfering replicas to reduce the spectrometer resolution requirement. Experimental implementations demonstrate real-time pulse characterization at average powers as low as 1 nW with spectral shears as high as 280 GHz.