Full characterization of the 10 fs NIR pulses by a dispersion scan measurement. First, the spectral phase of the pulses is varied (chirping) by inserting glass with gradually increasing thickness into the beam. Then, in a thin nonlinear crystal, the second harmonic of the chirped pulses is generated and its spectrum recorded for the series of different glass insertions. In this way, a 2D trace is recorded (shown at top left), from which the missing phase information can be extracted by using an iterative numerical algorithm. The simulated trace given by the phase-retrieval algorithm is shown at top right, exhibiting a striking similarity with the measured trace. The measured spectrum of the pulse together with the retrieved phase are shown at bottom left, while their Fourier transform giving the pulse shape (red curve) is displayed at bottom right. The black curve in this panel corresponds to the shortest possible pulse for the measured spectrum.