Spectral determination of the amplitude and the phase of intense ultrashort optical pulses

International audienceWe present the results of the spectral analysis of intense ultrashort laser pulses propagating through nonlinear transparent media. We discuss the spectral features characteristic of the self-phase-modulation process, which is the most prominent process during nonguided propagation in the weakly nonlinear regime. We describe an application of automatic pulse phase retrieval based on the Kerr-like nonlinearity