Abstract

Thin layers of organic molecules showing second-order nonlinearities have received much interest from the viewpoint of fundamental molecular physics, for optoelectronic applications, and for frequency conversion and characterization of ultrashort laser pulses. In particular, the very small group velocity dispersion makes thin films attractive for the characterization of pulses in the sub-100 fs regime [1]. In this contribution, we study resonant and nonresonant second-order nonlinearities of molecular films with a time resolution of 15 fs. In the range of molecular resonances, we demonstrate for the first time a finite response time of the nonlinear medium [2]Thin layers of organic molecules showing second-order nonlinearities have received much interest from the viewpoint of fundamental molecular physics, for optoelectronic applications, and for frequency conversion and characterization of ultrashort laser pulses. In particular, the very small group velocity dispersion makes thin films attractive for the characterization of pulses in the sub-100 fs regime [1]. In this contribution, we study resonant and nonresonant second-order nonlinearities of molecular films with a time resolution of 15 fs. In the range of molecular resonances, we demonstrate for the first time a finite response time of the nonlinear medium [2]

© 1996 IEEE