Dynamics of excited-state absorbers: an analytical approach

Summary form only given. Passive optical limiters are used to protect human eyes or sensitive optical elements from laser damage. Excited-state absorption (ESA) evoked transitions from one excited state to a higher one is a prerequisite for efficient optical limiting. Numerous parameters of the system as well as laser pulse characteristics make it difficult to determine optimum conditions for efficient operation. Thus, analytical results would considerably simplify the optimization problem. However, the dynamical system for ESA does not permit a straightforward analytical solution except for the case of rectangular input pulses that only approximately model realistic laser pulses. This contribution presents a consistent analytical approach for ESA applicable for nano- and picosecond pulses of arbitrary shape.