Measurement of cross-phase modulation in optical materials through the direct measurement of the optical phase

Advances in ultra-short laser systems have fueled recent interest in developing practical methods to completely characterize the intensity and phase of ultrashort laser pulses. Such techniques can be extended to a variety of problems where the characterization of the full electric field of an ultrashort optical pulse provides critical insight into the potentially nonlinear action of the pulse with a material. Frequency-resolved optical grating (FROG) has been demonstrated as a technique to measure cross-phase modulation in optical materials.