Abstract
Single-to-sub-cycle pulses in the visible-to-infrared region have strong potential to produce isolated attosecond burst, which can be used in observing the fleeting electronic dynamics. Though streaking technique is able to characterize the driving pulse with attosecond resolution, complex apparatus and extremely high laser intensity is required. All-optical techniques, such as frequency-resolved optical gating (FROG) or spectral shearing interferometry, are much more simplified and sensitive. However, they are severely restrained by the enormous group velocity mismatch in measuring sub-5 fs pulses. Sonogram techniques can be all-optical, but catch less attention than their FROG siblings due to the complexity of the experimental setup. In this work, we propose a cross-correlation scheme to fully access the great potential of sonogram in single-to-sub-cycle pulse measurement. By using a synchronized reference pulse of duration to measure the temporal intensity of each filtered signal spectrum via intensity cross-correlation (IXC), the required phase-matching bandwidth in IXC can be greatly relaxed. Our simulations show accurate spectral phase retrieval of a multi-plate continuum (MPC) spectrum with temporal duration down to 2.3 fs (0.88 cycle) by using a 100-um-thick BBO crystal (too thick for any existing all-optical methods).