Abstract

The response of reverse-saturable dyes, since it is associated with electronic transitions, can be extremely fast, and consequently there have been proposals for the application of these dyes to laser mode locking, pulse shaping, and optical limiting.¹ We recently reported² that there is an important paradox concerning picosecond reverse-saturable absorption (RSA) at high fluences, where the RSA is itself reversed, which, in turn, causes a change in sign of the effective χ⁽³⁾ polarization term. This useful changeover regime is exploited to investigate the intricate dynamics of the tricarbocyanine laser dye HITCI.

© 1994 Optical Society of America