Physics 9 Springer-Verlag 1981 Influence of Fluctuating Pulse Durations on the Time Resolution of Probing Experiments

Abstract. Fluctuating pulse durations considerably influence the time resolution of probing experiments. The commonly used arithmetic averaging the experimental data changes the shape of the signal curves and gives longer decay times in the wings. Methods are presented to reduce the effect of fluctuating pulse durations. PACS: 06, 42.80 With the advent of picosecond light pulses the in-vestigation of ultrashort dynamical processes has be-come an active field of research. Various laser systems, mode-locked dye lasers, and Nd-glass lasers with pulse durations of the order of one picosecond have been employed to measure a variety of ultrashort pheno-mena [1-3]. For the experimentalist t is essential to know the time resolution of the system to state the shortest ime constant he is able to measure. It has been recognized generally that the time resolution i