Sub-Picosecond Optical Gating by Optical Wavefront Conjugation

We report the demonstration of a new technique for ultrashort optical gating. Our technique provides low background optical gating without the need for polarizers or dispersive elements. Furthermore, unlike the optical Kerr shutter of Duguay and Hansen [1] gate times shorter than the molecular relaxation times are easily obtained. The operation of this gate is based upon optical wavefront conjugation [2–8].