Femtosecond induced susceptibility change due to a two-photon population grating in carotenoid solutions

Author

Morita, Ryuji ; Yanagisawa, Hirotaka ; Yamashita, Mikio ; Shigekawa, Hidemi

Author_Institution

Dept. of Appl. Phys., Hokkaido Univ., Sapporo, Japan

fYear

1998

fDate

10-14 Aug 1998

Firstpage

224

Lastpage

226

Abstract

Organic materials with π-conjugated electron systems attract much attention because of their large optical nonlinearities. One of the organic molecules with an extended π-electron structure is carotene. Moreover, excited states of carotenoids play crucial roles in the primary processes of photosynthesis. Information on electronic energy levels of carotenoids is essential to understand the mechanism of their harvesting function in photosynthetic systems. In the present study, we have investigated femtosecond dynamics of optical nonlinearity in β,β-carotene (β-carotene) solutions by means of an optical heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect (OHD-OKE) technique

Keywords

diffraction gratings; excited states; high-speed optical techniques; molecular biophysics; nonlinear optical susceptibility; optical Kerr effect; organic compounds; photosynthesis; two-photon processes; β,β-carotene; β-carotene solutions; π-conjugated electron systems; OHD-OKE technique; carotenoid solutions; carotenoids; electronic energy levels; excited states; extended π-electron structure; femtosecond dynamics; femtosecond induced susceptibility change; harvesting function; optical heterodyne-detected optical Kerr effect; optical nonlinearities; optical nonlinearity; organic materials; photosynthesis; photosynthetic systems; primary processes; two-photon population grating; Gratings; Laser excitation; Nonlinear optics; Optical mixing; Optical pumping; Optical refraction; Optical variables control; Probes; Ultrafast electronics; Ultrafast optics;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Nonlinear Optics '98: Materials, Fundamentals and Applications Topical Meeting

Conference_Location

Kauai, HI

Print_ISBN

0-7803-4950-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/NLO.1998.710265

Filename

710265