The optical pulse is attenuated as it propagates it along the fibre.

Several techniques are available to measure ultrashort optical pulses:

In this method, two or more optical pulses with variable time delay between them are used to investigate the processes happening during a chemical reaction.

There must also be a means to modulate the light, thus causing it to carry data in the form of optical pulses.

Subsequent optical pulses perform repetitive measurements at the frame rate of the pulsed laser.

Then, information can be transmitted by presence or absence of optical pulses which will correspond to a specific sequence of 1s and 0s.

For example, the spectrometer of Venera 9 saw irregular optical pulses.

Q-Spoil is a technique used to produce high power short duration optical pulses.

In this situation, optical pulses will form in such a way as to minimize the loss from the modulator.

In addition, a pre-ionization electric or optical pulse is often used.