The spectral and dynamic effects associated with a non-zero difference, d, between the permanent dipole moments of two molecular states involved in a transition, are investigated for a variety of electromagnetic field-molecule interactions. Both analytical and exact numerical techniques are used to solve the time-dependent Schrodinger equation and to obtain the temporal populations of the molecular states and the associated absorption spectra, for molecular interactions with a Gaussian pulsed, or one or two continuous wave (CW), laser(s).;Analytical rotating wave approximation results are derived for a single CW laser interacting with a two-level d {dollar}\\ne{dollar} 0 molecule with an excited state lifetime, and for a two-level d {dollar}\\ne{dollar} 0 molecule interacting with two CW lasers. A symmetry-adapted Riemann product integral method for exact calculations of pulsed laser-molecule interactions is developed and applied to specific problems. The Floquet technique for the treatment of periodic Hamiltonians is extended to accommodate the interaction of a molecule with two CW lasers.;The one-field RWA results are used to predict and interpret the effects of permanent dipoles on the temporal behaviour of the molecular states for a decaying two-level system interacting with a CW laser, and for a non-decaying two-level system interacting with a pulsed laser. It is shown that the excited state lifetime and the pulse duration can act as internal and external probes, respectively, of the temporal effects of permanent dipoles, relative to the often-studied d = 0 problem. The two-field analytical RWA solutions are used to help discuss and predict the effects of permanent dipole moments in two-laser multi-photon transitions. Several examples of multi-photon, two-colour, two-level resonance profiles, calculated in the RWA and by using exact Floquet techniques, are used to demonstrate how particular multi-photon transitions can be optimized, and to help quantify the conditions for the validity of the two-colour RWA. The effects of neighbouring energy levels on the transition of interest, for both probe and pump-probe laser-molecule interactions, are investigated using a series of three- to seven-level model molecular systems.
The spectral and dynamic effects associated with a non-zero difference, d, between the permanent dipole moments of two molecular states involved in a transition, are investigated for a variety of electromagnetic field-molecule interactions. Both analytical and exact numerical techniques are used to solve the time-dependent Schrodinger equation and to obtain the temporal populations of the molecular states and the associated absorption spectra, for molecular interactions with a Gaussian pulsed, or one or two continuous wave (CW), laser(s).;Analytical rotating wave approximation results are derived for a single CW laser interacting with a two-level d {dollar}\ne{dollar} 0 molecule with an excited state lifetime, and for a two-level d {dollar}\ne{dollar} 0 molecule interacting with two CW lasers. A symmetry-adapted Riemann product integral method for exact calculations of pulsed laser-molecule interactions is developed and applied to specific problems. The Floquet technique for the treatment of periodic Hamiltonians is extended to accommodate the interaction of a molecule with two CW lasers.;The one-field RWA results are used to predict and interpret the effects of permanent dipoles on the temporal behaviour of the molecular states for a decaying two-level system interacting with a CW laser, and for a non-decaying two-level system interacting with a pulsed laser. It is shown that the excited state lifetime and the pulse duration can act as internal and external probes, respectively, of the temporal effects of permanent dipoles, relative to the often-studied d = 0 problem. The two-field analytical RWA solutions are used to help discuss and predict the effects of permanent dipole moments in two-laser multi-photon transitions. Several examples of multi-photon, two-colour, two-level resonance profiles, calculated in the RWA and by using exact Floquet techniques, are used to demonstrate how particular multi-photon transitions can be optimized, and to help quantify the conditions for the validity of the two-colour RWA. The effects of neighbouring energy levels on the transition of interest, for both probe and pump-probe laser-molecule interactions, are investigated using a series of three- to seven-level model molecular systems.
The interaction is studied of a Gaussian pulsed or a continuous wave (CW) electric field with a molecule that has a nonzero difference d between the permanent dipoles of the ground and excited states involved in a transition. The unusual spectral effects associated with the transition with d ≠ 0, relative to the often studied case with d = 0, have been investigated previously in the two-level approximation and for continuous wave lasers. The observation of these effects, including markedly increased periods of excited state populations and negative Bloch-Siegart shifts, will often require the intense fields associated with pulsed rather than purely continuous wave electric fields. Transitions induced by continuous wave and pulsed laser-‘permanent dipole molecule’ interactions, for high field intensities and varying pulse durations, are investigated with model calculations carried out using exact Floquet and symmetry-adapted Riemann product integral methods. These calculations illustrate how the increased period of the excited state populations for dipolar molecules, and the associated molecule-field couplings, can be probed by sampling the time-dependent populations of the excited states using ultrashort to short pulses. The discussion illustrates the predictive and interpretive importance of the analytical expression for the molecule-EMF coupling provided by the rotating wave approximation (RWA) with d ≠ 0. The examples considered show, for example, temporal beating effects between the field and the RWA or Rabi frequencies and their dependence on d.
The interaction of two continuous wave electric fields (lasers) with a two-level molecule, that has a nonzero difference d, between the permanent dipoles of the two states involved in a multiphoton two-color transition, is studied in the rotating wave approximation and by using exact methods. Analytical rotating wave approximation results for the time-dependent populations of the molecular states and for the resonance profiles are derived and used to help discuss the effects of permanent dipole moments in the two-color absorption problem. Several examples of multiphoton, two-color, two-level resonance profiles calculated in the rotating wave approximation and by using exact techniques, are employed for illustrative purposes. They are used to help quantify the conditions for the validity of the two-color rotating wave approximation, which are considerably more restrictive than the analogous conditions for the one-color rotating wave approximation with d≠0, and to illustrate the interpretive and predictive nature of the rotating wave approximation results. For example, there are many multiphoton, two-color transitions that are available if a molecule possesses permanent dipoles (d≠0). The analytic rotating wave approximation expression for the molecule-two laser coupling can often be used to reliably estimate the field parameters of the two lasers that are required to optimize a given transition relative to others.
An analytic expression for the absorption spectra of a two-level molecule or atom is derived, within the rotating wave approximation (RWA), which includes the effects of permanent dipole moments and static electric fields. The derivation is for the interaction of the system with a plane-polarized sinusoidal electromagnetic field (EMF) in the semi-classical electric dipole approximation. The RWA resonance profile, and a series of exactly calculated two-level model spectra, are used to investigate some single- and multi-photon spectral effects due to permanent dipoles and static fields, relative to the atomic problem (no permanent dipoles). These effects include the occurrence of even as well as odd photon transitions. Permanent dipole moments can cause narrowing of the resonances, oscillatory fringes around the resonances as a function of frequency, and decreases in the molecule-EMF coupling, relative to the atomic results. Comparisons with exact two-level model spectra are used to study the validity of the RWA results and indicate that several features, such as dynamic backgrounds and shifts of the resonance frequencies from the weak EMF limits of {dollar}\\omega\\sbsp{lcub}\\rm res{rcub}{lcub}\\rm N{rcub}{dollar} = {dollar}\\Delta{dollar}E/N, N = 1,2,3, dots, are missing in the RWA spectra as the coupling increases.;Perturbative corrections to the RWA absorption spectra and the full widths at half maxima for the resonances are derived, neglecting static fields, and used to investigate and explain the effects missing in the RWA; the RWA resonance profile is a zeroth plus first order result obtainable from a time-independent Floquet Hamiltonian secular equation. The usefulness and validity of the perturbative corrections are investigated and it is concluded that these corrections are not useful computationally past second order. However, the corrections are useful in understanding some of the deficiencies of the RWA. These include the shifts of the N-photon resonance positions to low frequency, with respect to {dollar}\\Delta{dollar}E/N, that can occur for molecules with non-zero permanent dipoles; the shift is always to high frequency for atoms. A series of exact model calculations, for "giant dipole" molecules, is also used to discuss the effects of permanent dipole moments on spectra and to establish comparisons with the recent literature on the subject.
A rotating-wave approximation (RWA) is developed to describe the interaction of a two-level system, which has permanent dipole moments, with two pulsed lasers. The RWA expressions for the time-dependent populations of the molecular states are applied to model laser-molecule interactions and tested by comparison with exact results. The results are used to discuss the pulsed-laser phase control of molecular excitation through the interplay of competing one- and two-photon resonances involving the effects of a nonzero difference d between the permanent dipoles of the two states involved in the transition; the competition vanishes if d=0.
The absolute laser phase dependence of the time-dependent populations of the molecular states, including the steady-state (long time) populations of the states, associated with the interaction of a molecule with a pulsed laser is investigated using illustrative two-level examples. One-photon transitions, including the effects of permanent dipoles, are discussed as a function of the pulse duration, intensity, and (absolute) laser phase, for selected laser frequencies. The effects of laser phase can be large, depending on the values of the pulse duration for a given frequency and intensity. The effects of permanent dipoles, relative to no permanent dipoles, are significant for large laser field strengths ε0. When the laser-molecule coupling parameter b=μ12ε0/E21⩾0.2, where μ12 and E21 are the transition dipole and energy difference between the ground and excited states, respectively, the dynamics of the pulse-molecule interaction are (strongly) phase dependent, independent of pulse duration, whereas the corresponding steady-state populations of the molecular states may or may not be phase-dependent depending on the pulse duration. Analytical rotating wave approximations for pulsed laser-molecule interactions are useful for interpreting the dynamics and the steady-state results as a function of field strength and pulse duration, including the effects of permanent dipole moments. The results reported in this paper are based on molecular parameters associated with an S0→S1 electronic transition in a dipolar molecule. However, they are presented in reduced form and therefore can be scaled to other regions of the electromagnetic spectrum. Short, intense pulses at or beyond the limits of current laser technology will often be required for the types of absolute laser phase effects of this paper to be appreciable for electronic excitations. The discussion, in the UV-VIS, also suffers from the use of a two-level model and from the requirement of field intensities that can be beyond the Keldysh limit. For other spectral regions, these absolute laser phase effects will be much more readily applicable.
One of the purposes of this paper is to develop an analytical many-level generalized rotating wave approximation (GRWA), including the effects of permanent dipoles, for the excitation of many-level molecules through the simultaneous absorption of two photons. Included are expressions for the two-photon laser–molecule coupling C, and its two components Cd and Cv corresponding to the direct permanent dipole and the virtual state excitation mechanisms, respectively, and related observables such as the time-dependent populations of the initial and final states of the excitation process and resonance profiles. This GRWA treatment also includes an energy shift parameter e, which causes shifts in the position of the resonance energy as the laser intensity increases. The effects of permanent dipoles are very different in Cv and e versus Cd. These effects have been discussed previously for Cd using analytic two-level RWA approaches. The analytical results for Cv and e obtained here are new as is their use in discussing the influence of permanent dipoles in the parts of the two-photon excitation process involving virtual states. In the absence of permanent dipoles Cd is zero whereas Cv and e are not; they equal the corresponding perturbation theory results. The GRWA and perturbative results are related by Bessel function damping functions which, for dipolar molecules, damp out the divergence of the perturbative results as the laser intensity increases. Illustrative examples are given for a two-photon excitation involving a model chromophore which has a significant virtual state contribution through both the laser–molecule coupling and the energy shift parameter.