Algorithm additions and remarks

Even though the algorithm above is superior to other methods in terms of ro- bustness and speed, there are cases in which it fails to converge, especially when there is a considerable amount of noise present in the measured spectrogram, or when the pulse and the gate are very similar in shape and duration. Although research into the robustness against noise has revealed that retrieval processes for spectrograms inherently distinguish between the waveform information and noise [29, 30], the algorithm eventually fails to deliver a solution, when the noise levels become too high.

Algorithms based on different schools of thought have been presented by several research groups. They include simulated annealing [31], genetic algorithms [32] and neural networks [33, 34, 35]. Even though these retrieval algorithms have promising properties, the principal components generalised projection (PCGP) al- gorithm is still superior because of its simple mathematical implementation. It

has certainly proven to be largely sufficient for the pulses encountered during the course of this work.

Delong and Trebino presented a summary of a series of spectrogram deconvolution algorithms in [36], and combined them in a ‘composite’ algorithm. Even though this article has been written before the arrival of the PCGPalgorithm, it provides useful insight and various additional tricks that can improve convergence also in the PCGP algorithm. Some of these have been implemented in the Matlab code I have developed, together with a few other useful additions to the algorithm that I have conceived and developed. Below is a brief discussion, as a reference for future users of the code.

Spectral intensity constraint

Additional information about the pulse or the gate can be used in two ways in the retrieval algorithm. It can either be injected as a part of the initial guess for the pulse or the gate, to give the algorithm a head start. For example, the spectral intensity is in most cases easily obtainable by performing a simple optical spectrum analyser measurement. Adding a random phase to this spectrum creates an appropriate initial guess for the algorithm.

The other way of using this additional information is to constrain the magnitude of the pulse or the gate to the square root of the measured spectrum. Limiting the spectrum of the pulse in this way during every iteration step however is not recommended, as it restricts the algorithm too much, and it easily gets stuck in a local minimum. It can be beneficial though when this constraint is applied only after a number of iterations, as it can ‘kick’ the reconstruction process out of a local minimum and eventually lead it to deliver a better spectrogram error.

Overcorrection

In the step where the intensity of the calculated spectrogram is replaced by the measured spectrogram intensity, the magnitude of the reconstruction is essentially ‘corrected’: the magnitude is increased where it is too small, and decreased where it is too large. More specifically, this can be written as:

E_sig′ (ω, τ) = Esig(ω, τ) |Esig(ω, τ)|

p

An overcorrection can be implemented by ‘amplifying’ the magnitude correction: E_sig′ (ω, τ) = Esig(ω, τ) p Imeas(ω, τ) Esig(ω, τ) α , (2.36)

whereα is the correction amplification factor. Whenα= 1, this equation reduces to equation 2.35. Increasing α can lead to a faster convergence. However, it can also lead to an unstable deconvolution that repeatedly overshoots the solution and fails to converge. I found that values forα between 1 and 2 can speed up the convergence, in agreement with [36].

Ambiguities

Seifertet al. have recently presented a theoretical investigation into nontrivial am- biguities for blind FROG deconvolution [37]. There are three trivial ambiguities:

1. The pulse and gate pair ( ˜E(ω),G˜(ω)) has exactly the same spectrogram as the pair ( ˜E(ω) exp(i(a1+bω)),G˜(ω) exp(i(a2 −bω)), with a1, a2 and b real

constants. A linear phase ramp in the spectral domain is equivalent to a shift in the time domain.

2. If the spectrogram is symmetric temporally,Imeas(ω, τ) =Imeas(ω,−τ), then the pair ( ˜E,G˜) has the same spectrogram trace as the complex conjugate pair ( ˜E∗

,G˜∗

), which corresponds to an inversion in time for the fields. 3. Also, if Imeas(ω, τ) = Imeas(ω,−τ), it is impossible to distinguish between

the pulse and the gate.

The latter two ambiguities can be eliminated if the spectral intensities are known (and different). However, Seifert et al. have shown that centro-symmetric traces can have multiple, nontrivial solutions [37]. Therefore, non-centrosymmetry is a required, although not sufficient condition for the trace to have a unique solution. The authors even hint that a spectrographic technique should create spectrograms that are as non-centrosymmetric as possible, and the spectra of the pulse and the gate should be different in order to allow a unique solution for the retrieval problem. The spectrograms presented further on in this work conform with this

suggestion. Where possible and relevant, I used consistency checks based on sim- ulations and independent measurements to confirm the quality of the retrieved pulse information.

Spectrogram error

The spectrogram error, defined in equation 2.23 does not take into account the noise that affects any experimental trace. This error is calculated where both traces (the measured and the reconstructed trace) are normalised to a peak of unity. The fact that the highest intensity pixel is also affected by noise will slightly increase the error. Therefore, a fairer value of the error is defined as

ǫ= v u u t 1 N2 N X i=1 N X j=1

[Icalc(ωi, τj)−µImeas(ωi, τj)]2. (2.37)

Here, µis a scaling parameter that minimises the error. Typical values that would indicate a good reconstruction, are around 0.005 for a 32_×32 point grid, and 0.002 for a 128_×128 point grid.

Spectrogram preparation

Before a measured spectrogram can be reconstructed mathematically, it has to be prepared adequately. It needs to be correctly sampled on a 2n_×2n _{point grid for} compatibility with Fast Fourier Transforms. The size of the grid depends on the complexity of the pulse and the difference in pulse duration between the pulse and the gate. Several steps to improve the quality of the measured spectrogram can also be incorporated, such as spectral and temporal filtering to average out the noise for example.

Figure 2.9 shows the different steps I incorporated in the Matlab code to ade- quately prepare the measured data for the deconvolution algorithm. First of all, the noise background is taken away by thresholding the data. What remains is then either spectrally averaged over a given number of pixels, or an envelope de- tection is executed on each of the spectral slices making up the spectrogram. After this, the spectrogram is resampled on the spectral lines (determined by the rep- etition rate of the pulses). This resampled spectrogram can then be interpolated onto a Fourier grid. As a final step, the spectrogram can then be filtered in the

spectrogram’s 2-D Fourier domain, to try to reduce any detrimental noise effects. Depending on the exact pulse source, its stability and the optical spectrum anal- yser used (and its exact settings), the parameters involved in these steps may need some tweaking, in order to extract the relevant data from the measured spectro- gram as accurately as is possible.

Measured data Background noise subtraction Spectral filtering/ envelope detection Resampling on spectral lines Interpolation on 2n_×2n _grid 2-D filtering in Fourier domain

Figure 2.9: _{Schematic overview of the different steps to prepare the measured} spectrogram data before feeding it into the deconvolution algorithm.

In AppendixB, I list a summary of the Matlab code, detailing the implementation of the different steps in the preparation of the spectrogram, together with the iterative PCGP algorithm.