Abstract
An innovative acquisition system for time-resolved spectroscopy is presented. It is based on the real-time acquisition of the experimental signal during the rapid scan of an optical delay line and enables data acquisition with high absolute time resolution (1 femtosecond), high scanning velocity (2.5 cm/s) and long time delay (several nanoseconds). We report precise interferometric tests of the acquisition system, focusing on technical features of the optical delay line. We check this data acquisition technique by performing ultra-fast time-resolved experiments with laser sources of high and low repetition rates.
Acknowledgments
The research has been performed at LENS. We would like to thank R. Righini for his support in the present research. This work was also supported by EC grant No. RII3-CT-2003-506350, by CRS-INFM-Soft Matter (CNR) and MIUR-COFIN-2005 grant N. 2005023141-003. We thank Riccardo Ballerini for indispensable mechanical support, and Mauro Giuntini for providing continuous assistance in the set-up of the electronics.