Interferometric autocorrelation measurements of supercontinuum based on two-photon absorption

We report on interferometric autocorrelation measurements of broadband supercontinuum light in the anomalous dispersion regime using two-photon absorption in a GaP photodetector. The method is simple and low-cost and provides a direct measure of second-order coherence properties, including quantitative information on coherence time and average duration of the supercontinuum pulses as well as on the presence of temporally coherent sub-structures. We report measurements in regimes where the supercontinuum is coherent and incoherent. In the former case, the interferometric measurements are similar to what is observed for mode-locked laser pulses, while in the latter case, the interferometric measurements and coherence properties are shown to have characteristics similar to those of a stationary chaotic light source. (C) 2019 Optical Society of America