Frequency-resolved optical gating measurement of ultrashort pulses by using single nanowire

The use of ultrashort pulses for fundamental studies and applications has been increasing rapidly in the past decades. Along with the development of ultrashort lasers, exploring new pulse diagnositic approaches with higher signal-to-noise ratio have attracted great scientific and technological interests. In this work, we demonstrate a simple technique of ultrashort pulses characterization with a single semiconductor nanowire. By performing a frequency-resolved optical gating method with a ZnO nanowire coupled to tapered optical microfibers, the phase and amplitude of a pulse series are extracted. The generated signals from the transverse frequency conversion process can be spatially distinguished from the input, so the signal-to-noise ratio is improved and permits lower energy pulses to be identified. Besides, since the nanometer scale of the nonlinear medium provides relaxed phase-matching constraints, a measurement of 300-nm-wide supercontinuum pulses is achieved. This system is highly compatible with standard optical fiber systems, and shows a great potential for applications such as on-chip optical communication.