Scattering of femtosecond optical pulses by small dielectric particles

The time-averaged scattering of femtosecond laser pulses by a dielectric sphere has been measured. A sphere is suspended in an electric quadrupole trap, allowing a detector mounted on a rotating arm to measure the scattered light as a function of angle. One of the beams from the colliding-pulse mode-locked laser is incident on the sphere while the other is directed to an autocorrelator and optical multichannel analyzer (OMA) for simultaneous measurement of pulse duration and bandwidth. The time-averaged intensity measurements are then compared to values calculated by integrating the Mie theory results for each Fourier component of the OMA data. The results of this technique are shown for a 22-m sphere of index matching oil for 53.5-fs (16-m) and 107-fs (32-m) pulses. The results of time-resolved scattering from a thin glass plate and a glass fiber are also reported.

Scattering of femtosecond optical pulses by small dielectric particles Conference Paper