A polarimetric experimental method was developed to determine the Jones matrix elements of transparent optical materials without sign ambiguity. A set of polarization dependent transmittance data of the samples was measured with polarizer -sample -analyzer system and another set of data was measured with polarizer -sample -quarter-wave plate -analyzer. Two data sets were compared and mathematically analyzed to obtain the correct signs of the elements of the matrix. The Jones matrix elements of a quarter-wave plate were determined to check the validity of the method. The experimentally obtained matrix elements of the quarter-wave plate were consistent with the theoretical expectations. The same method was applied to obtain the Jones matrix elements of a twisted nematic liquid crystal panel.

This paper describes a method to determine the phase retardation of birefringent optical components by combining spectral interferometry and the Fourier transform method. The retardation of each orthogonal polarization component was resolved by using two rotatable linear polarizers in the interferometer. The phase retardation measured by using suggested method was compared to that measured using the conventional polarimetric method. The results of independent methods were well matched, which confirms the validity of the proposed method.

Two different pump-probe (PP) setups were developed successfully with different femtosecond pulse lasers. Using a PP setup with an ultra-short pulse laser, the excitation of coherent phonons in GaAs was measured for a calibration and an accuracy test of the developed setup. The frequencies of the coherent phonon modes were in good agreement with reported values [1, 2]. The setups for ZnSe and GaAs were transmission and reflection–type, respectively. When using the ultra-short pulse laser, the signal in the PP experiment was measured by a balanced photo diode.In the other PP experimental setup, built to measure the transient transmittance of bulk ZnSe, the light source and detector differed from the previous PP setup. A strong pulse laser was successfully used for the spectrally resolved pump probe experimental setup. A broadband, high-resolution spectrometer (HR4000CG-UV-NIR) was used as the detector.

We have successfully constructed a Kerr lens mode-locked (KLM) Ti:sapphire oscillator to generate ultrashort pulses of ~18 fs. The oscillator consists of only 5 elements including a pair of double-chirped mirrors to balance negative group delay dispersion in the cavity. The bandwidth of the mode-locked laser oscillator spectrum is from 600 nm to 950 nm and pulse energy is 1.5 nJ. Both the output spectrum and the output power were stable against environmental disturbance. For the pulse characterization, a second harmonic generation frequency resolved optical gating method was used.

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