Ultrafast dynamics pump-probe absorption

We investigated the ultrafast dynamics in a Na-NaBr melt at 1073 K by fs pump probe absorption spectroscopy. A simple model was used to simulate the dynamics of polaron-, bipolaron- and Drude-type electrons. The relaxation times for polarons and bipolarons are 210 fs and 3 ps, respectively. The existence of an isosbestic point at 1.35 eV indicates an inter-conversion between bipolarons and Drude-type electrons. 

The quantum chemical calculations on Fe(CO)5 indicate that the lowest-energy accessible excited state is MC in character. The oscillator strength for the ground state to MC transition is small and most ultrafast experiments use either single or multiphoton excitation to MLCT states. The difference in product distribution depending on the excitation pulse duration points to an enhanced absorption cross section for the Fe(CO)5 excited state over the ground-state species to both pump and probe pulses. This tends to complicate the apparent photochemistry. Consequently the use of short-pulse single-photon excitation provides a better picture of the excited-state dynamics. 

Transient terahertz spectroscopy Time-resolved terahertz (THz) spectroscopy (TRTS) has been used to measure the transient photoconductivity of injected electrons in dye-sensitised titanium oxide with subpicosecond time resolution (Beard et al, 2002 Turner et al, 2002). Terahertz probes cover the far-infrared (10-600 cm or 0.3-20 THz) region of the spectrum and measure frequency-dependent photoconductivity. The sample is excited by an ultrafast optical pulse to initiate electron injection and subsequently probed with a THz pulse. In many THz detection schemes, the time-dependent electric field 6 f) of the THz probe pulse is measured by free-space electro-optic sampling (Beard et al, 2002). Both the amplitude and the phase of the electric field can be determined, from which the complex conductivity of the injected electrons can be obtained. Fitting the complex conductivity allows the determination of carrier concentration and mobility. The time evolution of these quantities can be determined by varying the delay time between the optical pump and THz probe pulses. The advantage of this technique is that it provides detailed information on the dynamics of the injected electrons in the semiconductor and complements the time-resolved fluorescence and transient absorption techniques, which often focus on the dynamics of the adsorbates. A similar technique, time-resolved microwave conductivity, has been used to study injection kinetics in dye-sensitised nanocrystalline thin films (Fessenden and Kamat, 1995). However, its time resolution is limited to longer than 1 ns. 

We have applied the ultrafast confocal microscope to map excited state dynamics in thin films of poly(9,9-dioctylfluorene) (PFO, see chemical structure in figure 2(a)), blended with polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA, 10% wt. PFO in PMMA). PFO is a blue-emitting polymer, with an absorption maximum at 385 nm (see Fig. 2(a)), while PMMA is transparent at our pump wavelength and it does not interact with PFO [6] so that it is optically inert. Figure 2(b) shows the macroscopic AT/T spectrum of PFO measured at x = 1 ps at 570 nm probe wavelength we observe a photo-induced absorption (PA) due to photo-generated polarons [7],... 

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