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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Dynamics of a multilevel molecular absorber interacting with a train of optical pulses

Mary J. Potasek, Mark F. Arend, Yuanhong Gao

Published Mar 15, 2007• 2 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The spatial and temporal dynamics of multilevel systems are studied by combining a multilevel rate equation model with a finite difference propagation code. Special attention is given to multiple pulse laser sequences. By studying the complex material response, the nonlinear absorption characteristics are explored for both picosecond and nanosecond pulse trains. The complex interrelationship between the multilevel decay rate parameters and the time scales describing the multipulse excitation sequence reverses the reverse saturation effect. By tracking of the dynamics of the level populations, we optimize the time scales of the photophysical parameters to produce a particular transmission response.

DOI
10.1364/josab.24.000839

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The spatial and temporal dynamics of multilevel systems are studied by combining a multilevel rate equation model with a finite difference propagation code. Special attention is given to multiple pulse laser sequences. By studying the complex material response, the nonlinear absorption characteristics are explored for both picosecond and nanosecond pulse trains. The complex interrelationship between the multilevel decay rate parameters and the time scales describing the multipulse excitation sequence reverses the reverse saturation effect. By tracking of the dynamics of the level populations, we optimize the time scales of the photophysical parameters to produce a particular transmission response.
We develop an analytical approach to the dynamics of band populations of reverse saturable absorbers modeled by the three-level approximation of the five-level rate equations. We find high-accuracy approximate solutions to these rate equations, taking into account the temporal shape of the incident laser pulse for different regimes of excitation. The results obtained are confirmed by direct numerical integration of the rate equations and are verified by solution of the full system of the rate and the propagation equations. The validity ranges of the approximations are determined. We also prove that for input pulses that are much longer than the lifetime of the first excited state the ground-state depletion obeys the same functional dependence on the input fluence as in the case of rectangular input pulses. The dynamics of the excited states, however, explicitly depends on the pulse shape. We quantitatively estimate the effect of various parameters on the nonlinear absorption coefficient and discuss implementation of the approach by a beam propagation method to reduce the computational time.
We model the response of a molecular medium to an intense pulse of light. We begin by reducing the Maxwell-Bloch equations for a multilevel molecular model system to a set of simplified propagation equations. We thereby obtain expressions for the frequency, temperature, and field intensity dependence of the ground and excited electronic state absorption cross sections, and the emission cross section, as well as the temperature dependence of the decay rate of the excited state. The phenomena of saturation, excited-state absorption, optically induced dichroism and birefringence, vibronic energy transfer, induced molecular alignment, decay of the matter-field interaction energy, and rotational diffusion are considered within the general formalism for describing the propagation of an intense pulse of light in the molecular medium. We find that the cross section for absorption (emission) of a photon is not identical to the cross section for molecular excitation (deexcitation) via the matter-field interaction. This is explained in terms of an energy balance between the matter, radiation, the matter-radiation interaction, and the bath responsible for the broadening of the molecular transitions. The inequality of these cross sections determines whether the system supplies or draws energy from the thermal bath. The rise in the vibrational temperature of molecules subjected to an intense short pulse is shown to significantly affect propagation of the pulse. The alignment of the molecular system resulting from saturation of the ground-state transition by a polarized laser pulse and the effects of the orientational dependence of the matter-field interaction including effects of rotational diffusion are determined. As an example of the formalism we consider pulse propagation in a Rhodamine 6G solution. We fit the parameters of the model to determine the frequency dependence of the ground- and excited-state absorption cross sections and the emission cross section and compare with experimentally determined cross sections. We describe the propagation of a pulse whose temporal width is comparable to the rotational diffusion time of the molecules in the dye solution and calculate polarization pulse probe signals.
The effects of intense laser pulse trains in coupled multilevel systems (such as pure or mixed molecular crystals) are analyzed by calculating exact density matrix evolutions. It is shown that two-level approximations are inadequate. The contributions of exchange couplings, inhomogeneous broadening, permanent multipole interactions and transition multipole interactions to absorption and photon echo line shapes are calculated. The absorption line shape of 1,4-dibromonaphthalene (DBN) is shown to be predominantly an isotopic substitution effect, as our Monte Carlo results give quantitative agreement with experiment for this model. Average t-matrix approximations to the Green’s function, which have been used to propose a different mechanism for the DBN line shape are shown to be qualitatively inadequate. Dipole–dipole interactions are shown to be an important photon echo decay mechanism in mixed crystals, with the relative importance of permanent and transition multipole interactions dependent on the resonance frequency distribution. Multiple pulse trains, including multiple pulse echoes and optical multiple-quantum sequences, are shown to be capable of distinguishing different types of interactions in the molecular Hamiltonian and reducing optical density effects. Specific pulse sequences are proposed and their effects are calculated.
We theoretically and experimentally study absorption of picosecond laser pulses in materials described by a four-level system that exhibit reverse saturable absorption (RSA). Using an approximate solution to the rate equations, we derive, analyze, and verify, numerically and experimentally, a single dynamical equation for the spatial evolution of the pulse fluence that includes both the rate equations and the propagation equation. This analytical approach considerably simplifies the study of optical limiting with picosecond pulses and helps to predict the behavior of the nonlinear transmittance, the level of output signal clamping, and a possible turnover from RSA to saturable absorption that restricts the performance of optical limiters based on RSA. The results obtained can also be used to characterize RSA materials by the pump–probe technique.
The nonlinear absorption properties of organic materials in nanosecond (ns), picoseond (ps) and femtosecond (fs) regime were theoretically investigated by rate equations based on multilevel organic molecular system respectively. The results show that the reverse saturable absorption (RSA) phnomenon is mainly due to the absorption contribution of the triplet first excited state in the ns regime, and that of the singlet first excited state in the ps regime, both of which are a third-order nonlinear phenomena. The RSA phnomenon in fs regime is mainly due to the excited state absorption (ESA) induced by two-photon absorption (TPA), which is a fifth-order nonlinear phenomenon.
The Maxwell–Schrödinger equations describing the ultrashort laser pulse propagation in multilevel molecular media are shown to be analytically solvable and to reduce to nonlinear multisine-Gordon equations for certain models of the field–molecule system. Special cases of level schemes are shown to lead to soliton propagation. A numerical study is presented in order to examine the effect of nonresonant (virtual) transitions on pulse propagation and amplification in a three-level molecular system as a function of intensity and detuning.