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11: Ultrafast Measurement Techniques

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    • 11.1: Pump Probe Measurements
      This page covers non-colinear and colinear pump-probe measurement techniques for investigating relaxation dynamics in condensed matter. It details the use of chopped pump beams in non-colinear setups to minimize noise and describes how colinear setups leverage orthogonal polarization or chopping.
    • 11.2: Electro-Optic Sampling
      This page discusses Electro-Optic Sampling, introduced by Valdmanis and Mourou in the 1980s. The technique involves using polarization rotation of laser pulses in a medium with linear electro-optic effects to sample instantaneous electric fields. An electrical transient is generated via a photo-conductive switch, which is then sampled by a delayed pulse using an electro-optic probe, with illustrative figures provided to explain the process.
    • 11.3: THz Spectroscopy and Imaging
      This page covers the generation and measurement of terahertz (THz) electromagnetic impulses using photo-conductive switches and optical rectification with sub-100 femtosecond pulses. Pioneered by Ch. Fattinger and D. Grischkowsky, these techniques enable THz signal reception through photo-conductive receivers or electro-optic sampling. It also discusses how materials can modify THz waveforms, detailing effects such as chirping and pulse broadening due to frequency-dependent properties.
    • 11.4: Four-Wave Mixing
      This page discusses four-wave mixing (FWM), an advanced ultrafast spectroscopy technique used to investigate energy relaxation and dephasing in materials. It employs a two-level system model, where multiple laser pulse interactions create polarization waves and population gratings. The signal generated decays over time, which is defined by dephasing time \(T_2\) and energy relaxation time \(T_1\).

    This page titled 11: Ultrafast Measurement Techniques was last modified on Mon, 12 Jul 2021 18:19:32 GMT and is shared under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license and was authored, remixed, and/or curated by Franz X. Kaertner (MIT OpenCourseWare) via source content that was edited to the style and standards of the LibreTexts platform.