Amplitude and phase characterization of weak blue ultrashort pulses by downconversion.

We present difference-frequency generation cross-correlation frequency-resolved optical gating, a new method of characterizing the amplitude and phase of weak ultrashort pulses in the blue spectral region. The method uses the spectrally resolved downconversion signal of the blue pulse and a fully characterized reference pulse with a lower center frequency. The amplitude and phase of the blue test pulse are retrieved from the corresponding spectrogram and electric field of the reference pulse with an interactive Fourier-transform algorithm.