Highly simplified device for measuring the intensity and phase of picosecond pulses

We demonstrate an extremely simple frequency-resolved-optical-gating (GRENOUILLE) device for measuring the intensity and phase of relatively long--ps--pulses. In order to achieve the required high spectral resolution and large temporal range, it uses a few-cm-thick second-harmonic-generation crystal in the shape of a pentagon. This has the additional advantage of reducing the device's total number of components to as few as three simple easily aligned optics, making it the simplest device ever developed for complete pulse measurement. We report complete intensity-and-phase measurements of pulses up to 15ps long with a time-bandwidth product of 21.