The Intensity of Short Light Pulses Determined with Saturable Absorbers,

It is shown that the peak intensity of a short light pulse can be obtained from a measurement of the energy transmission using a saturable absorber. The influence of temporal and spatial pulse shape is discussed and found to be of minor importance. The method is independent of the beam diameter. No absolute calibration of the photodetectors is necessary. The technique is demonstrated experimentally, and good agreement is found with calculations