Abstract
Recent years have witnessed a dramatic resurgence in the application of fully resonant tour-wave-mixing schemes to problems of molecular structure and dynamics. This renewed interest has been motivated by a myriad of factors, not the least of which is the potential of exploiting the absorption-based, background-free nature of such methods for the interrogation of species not amenable to more traditional laser spectroscopic probes. All of these burgeoning techniques make use of the nonlinearities inherent to an ensemble of target molecules so as to couple and redirect impinging optical fields, thereby resulting in the emission of a coherent and spatially distinct beam of light whenever a resonance condition is established with a rovibronic transition. Although exhibiting a quadratic dependence on sample number density, substantial resonant enhancement enables trace molecules to be detected with sensitivities that far exceed those attainable by other nonlinear optical means. This talk will focus on the use of degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) spectroscopy for the elucidation of primary chemical events, with the polarization selectivity and velocity discrimination afforded by sub-Doppler (phase-conjugate) implementations permitting the direct extraction of translational and rotational anisotropies.
© 1997 Optical Society of America
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