Pump/probe

Fig. 4 Testing configurations of the pump-probe system (a) pulse-echo configuration, (b) split...

Femtosecond pump-probe experiments have burgeoned in the last ten years, and this field is now connnonly referred to as laser femtochemistry [26, 27, 28 and 22],... 

Pollard W T, Lee S-Y and Mathies R A 1990 Wavepacket theory of dynamic absorption spectra in femtosecond pump-probe experiments J. Chem. Phys. 92 4012... 

Lee S-Y 1995 Wave-packet model of dynamic dispersed and integrated pump-probe signals in femtosecond transition state spectroscopy Femtosecond Chemistry ed J Manz and L Wdste (Heidelberg VCH)... 

Meier C and Engel V 1995 Pump-probe ionization spectroscopy of a diatomic molecule sodium molecule as a prototype example Femtosecond Chemistry Proc. Berlin Conf Femtosecond Chemistry (Berlin, March 1993) (Weinheim Verlag Chemie)... 

At still shorter time scales other techniques can be used to detenuiue excited-state lifetimes, but perhaps not as precisely. Streak cameras can be used to measure faster changes in light intensity. Probably the most iisellil teclmiques are pump-probe methods where one intense laser pulse is used to excite a sample and a weaker pulse, delayed by a known amount of time, is used to probe changes in absorption or other properties caused by the excitation. At short time scales the delay is readily adjusted by varying the path length travelled by the beams, letting the speed of light set the delay. 

Time-resolved spectroscopy has become an important field from x-rays to the far-IR. Both IR and Raman spectroscopies have been adapted to time-resolved studies. There have been a large number of studies using time-resolved Raman [39], time-resolved resonance Raman [7] and higher order two-dimensional Raman spectroscopy (which can provide coupling infonuation analogous to two-dimensional NMR studies) [40]. Time-resolved IR has probed neutrals and ions in solution [41, 42], gas phase kmetics [42] and vibrational dynamics of molecules chemisorbed and physisorbed to surfaces [44]- Since vibrational frequencies are very sensitive to the chemical enviromnent, pump-probe studies with IR probe pulses allow stmctiiral changes to... 

Returning to the original pump-probe RRS, it is a simple matter to complete the 4WM WMEL diagrams for any proposed RRS. Usually RRS experiments are of the frill quadrature sort, both spontaneous RRS as well as homodyne detected femtosecond RRS. The latter fit most pump-probe configurations. 

Figure Bl.4.6. Left an experimental optieal THz pump-probe set-up using sub-pieoseeond THz pulse generation and deteetion by the eleetro-optie effeet. Right the applieation of sueh pulses to the relaxation of optieally exeited TBNC in toluene. The THz eleetrie field used for these experiments is shown in the upper-right inset. Tluee exponential deeay tenns, of order 2, 50 and 700 ps, are required to fit the observed temporal relaxation of the solvent [51].

The dynamics of fast processes such as electron and energy transfers and vibrational and electronic deexcitations can be probed by using short-pulsed lasers. The experimental developments that have made possible the direct probing of molecular dissociation steps and other ultrafast processes in real time (in the femtosecond time range) have, in a few cases, been extended to the study of surface phenomena. For instance, two-photon photoemission has been used to study the dynamics of electrons at interfaces [ ]. Vibrational relaxation times have also been measured for a number of modes such as the 0-Fl stretching m silica and the C-0 stretching in carbon monoxide adsorbed on transition metals [ ]. Pump-probe laser experiments such as these are difficult, but the field is still in its infancy, and much is expected in this direction m the near fiitiire. 

An interferometric method was first used by Porter and Topp [1, 92] to perfonn a time-resolved absorption experiment with a -switched ruby laser in the 1960s. The nonlinear crystal in the autocorrelation apparatus shown in figure B2.T2 is replaced by an absorbing sample, and then tlie transmission of the variably delayed pulse of light is measured as a fiinction of the delay This approach is known today as a pump-probe experiment the first pulse to arrive at the sample transfers (pumps) molecules to an excited energy level and the delayed pulse probes the population (and, possibly, the coherence) so prepared as a fiinction of time. 

The pump-probe concept can be extended, of course, to other methods for detection. Zewail and co-workers [16,18, 19 and 2Q, 93] have used the probe pulse to drive population from a reactive state to a state that emits fluorescence [94, 95, 96, 97 and 98] or photodissociates, the latter situation allowing the use of mass spectrometry as a sensitive and selective detection method [99, 100]. 

Pump-probe absorption experiments on the femtosecond time scale generally fall into two effective types, depending on the duration and spectral width of the pump pulse. If tlie pump spectrum is significantly narrower in width than the electronic absorption line shape, transient hole-burning spectroscopy [101. 102. 103. 104. 105. 106. 107. 108. 109. 110. 111. 112 and 113] can be perfomied. The second type of experiment, dynamic absorption spectroscopy [57, 114. 115. 116. 117. 118. 119. 120. 121 and 122], can be perfomied if the pump and probe pulses are short compared to tlie period of the vibrational modes that are coupled to the electronic transition. 

The methods diseussed so far, fluoreseenee upeonversion, the various pump-probe speetroseopies, and the polarized variations for the measurement of anisotropy, are essentially eonventional speetroseopies adapted to the femtoseeond regime. At the simplest level of interpretation, the infonnation eontent of these eonventional time-resolved methods pertains to populations in resonantly prepared or probed states. As applied to ehemieal kineties, for most slow reaetions (on the ten pieoseeond and longer time seales), populations adequately speeify the position of the reaetion eoordinate intemiediates and produets show up as time-delayed speetral entities, and assignment of the transient speetra to ehemieal stnietures follows, in most oases, the same prinoiples used in speotrosoopio experiments perfomied with oontinuous wave or nanoseoond pulsed lasers. 

Balk M W and Fleming G R 1985 Dependence of the coherence spike on the material dephasIng time In pump-probe experiments J. Chem. Phys. 83 4300-7... 

Diffey W M and Beck W F 1997 Rapid-scanning interferometer for ultrafast pump-probe spectroscopy with phase-sensitive detection Rev. Sci. Instrum. 3296-300... 

B2.5.4.2 LASER FLASH PHOTOLYSIS AND PUMP-PROBE TECHNIQUES... 

Figure B2.5.8. Schematic representation of laser-flash photolysis using the pump-probe technique. The beam splitter BS splits the pulse coming from the laser into a pump and a probe pulse. The pump pulse initiates a reaction in the sample, while the probe beam is diverted by several mirrors M tluough a variable delay line.

As an example, we mention the detection of iodine atoms in their P3/2 ground state with a 3 + 2 multiphoton ionization process at a laser wavelength of 474.3 run. Excited iodine atoms ( Pi/2) can also be detected selectively as the resonance condition is reached at a different laser wavelength of 477.7 run. As an example, figure B2.5.17 hows REMPI iodine atom detection after IR laser photolysis of CF I. This pump-probe experiment involves two, delayed, laser pulses, with a 200 ns IR photolysis pulse and a 10 ns probe pulse, which detects iodine atoms at different times during and after the photolysis pulse. This experiment illustrates a frindamental problem of product detection by multiphoton ionization with its high intensity, the short-wavelength probe laser radiation alone can photolyse the... 

Jeiezko F, Lounis B and Orrit M 1997 Pump-probe spectroscopy and photophysicai properties of singie di-benzanthanthrene moiecuies in a naphthaiene crystai J. Phys. Chem 107 1692-702... 

Tamarat P, Lounis B, Bernard J, Orrit M, Kummer S, Kettner R, Mais S and Basche T 1995 Pump-probe experiments with a single molecule ac-Stark effect and nonlinear optical response Phys. Rev. Lett. 75 1514-17... 

Figure C3.1.11. Apparatus for pump-probe time-resolved resonance Raman spectroscopy. (From Varotsis C and Babcock G T 1993 K4ethods Enzymol. 226 409-31.)...

Ultrafast TRCD has also been measured in chemical systems by incoriDorating a PEM into the probe beam optics of a picosecond laser pump-probe absorjDtion apparatus [35]. The PEM resonant frequency is very low (1 kHz) in these experiments, compared with the characteristic frequencies of ultrafast processes and so does not interfere with the detection of ultrafast CD changes. 

Figure C3.4.5. Typical scheme of a single-colour pump-probe experiment utilizing lock-in-amplifier detection.

Jonas D M, Lang M J, Nagasawa Y, Joo T and Fleming G R 1996 Pump-probe polarization anisotropy study of femtoseoond energy transfer within the photosynthetio reaotion-oenter of Rhodobacter sphaeroides R26 J. Rhys. 

Another important breaktlirough occurred with the 1974 development by Laubereau et al [24] of tunable ultrafast IR pulse generation. IR excitation is more selective and reliable than SRS, and IR can be used in pump-probe experiments or combined with anti-Stokes Raman probing (IR-Raman method) [16] Ultrashort IR pulses have been used to study simple liquids and solids, complex liquids, glasses, polymers and even biological systems. 

Schematic diagrams of modem experimental apparatus used for IR pump-probe by Payer and co-workers [50] and for IR-Raman experiments by Dlott and co-workers [39] are shown in figure C3.5.3. Ultrafast mid-IR pulse generation by optical parametric amplification (OPA) [71] will not discussed here. Single-colour IR pump-probe or vibrational echo experiments have been perfonned with OP As or free-electron lasers. Free-electron lasers use...

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