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International Conference on Ultrafast Phenomena

Optimal Sequences for Chirped-Pulse Stimulated Raman Preparation of Large Amplitude Vibrational Motion

Eric M. Hiller, Jeffrey A. Cina

Published Jan 1, 1996• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Recent calculations [1, see also 2-5] indicate that suitably timed sequences of electronically preresonant femtosecond laser pulses can induce large amplitude coherent molecular vibrations of dilute chromophores in low temperature hosts, without undue electronic absorption or other loss processes. Here we demonstrate that frequency modulation, in the forms of variable pulse center frequency and variable chirp rate, can significantly further enhance the efficiency of impulsive stimulated Raman preparation of coherent vibrations in the electronic ground state.

DOI
10.1364/up.1996.tue.33

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Recent calculations [1, see also 2-5] indicate that suitably timed sequences of electronically preresonant femtosecond laser pulses can induce large amplitude coherent molecular vibrations of dilute chromophores in low temperature hosts, without undue electronic absorption or other loss processes. Here we demonstrate that frequency modulation, in the forms of variable pulse center frequency and variable chirp rate, can significantly further enhance the efficiency of impulsive stimulated Raman preparation of coherent vibrations in the electronic ground state.
Computer simulations are presented to show that frequency-chirped ultrashort pulses, when properly employed, may be more effective than their compressed analogs for generating large-amplitude vibrational coherence in molecular systems. A one-dimensional model, which was used previously to simulate impulsive optical excitation of CsI, is used [ Chem. Phys. Lett.158, 238 ( 1988)]. A negatively chirped pulse (for which the light is red-shifted with time) is devised to excite the population initially onto the excited surface. As this population propagates in the repulsive upper state, the later red-shifted portions of the pulse follow the change in the resonance conditions and effectively dump the population back down into excited vibrational states of the ground surface. These results are compared with the dynamics simulated with the compressed and positively chirped analogs, and the experimental realization of this scheme is discussed.
Abstract The first step in the coherent control of a photoinduced binary reaction is bond making or photoassociation. We have recently demonstrated coherent control of bond making in multi-photon femtosecond photoassociation of hot magnesium atoms, using linearly chirped pulses (Levin et al 2015 Phys. Rev. Lett. 114 233003 ). The detected yield of photoassociated magnesium dimers was enhanced by positively chirped pulses which is explained theoretically by a combination of purification and chirp-dependent Raman transitions. The yield could be further enhanced by pulse optimization resulting in pulses with an effective linear chirp and a sub-pulse structure, where the latter allows for exploiting vibrational coherences. Here, we systematically explore the efficiency of phase-shaped pulses for the coherent control of bond making, employing a parametrization of the spectral phases in the form of cosine functions. We find up to an order of magnitude enhancement of the yield compared to the unshaped transform-limited pulse. The highly performing pulses all display an overall temporally increasing instantaneous frequency and are composed of several overlapping sub-pulses. The time delay between the first two sub-pulses fits very well the vibrational frequency of the generated intermediate wavepacket. These findings are in agreement with chirp-dependent Raman transitions and exploitation of vibrational dynamics as underlying control mechanisms.
A model of two-level weakly interacting quantum systems is used to demonstrate that the phase of molecular vibrations excited through stimulated Raman scattering can be controlled by the relative phase of time-separated laser pulses, allowing synchronization and amplitude control of coherence excitation in a medium. For transients with a phase relaxation time less than the field cycle, the field half-cycle can serve as a subfemtosecond probe of coherent vibrations. In this regime, the high-frequency field-induced modulation of molecular dipole moments gives rise to a detectable modulation of the optical response of a medium at the frequency $2\ensuremath{\omega}$, $\ensuremath{\omega}$ being the frequency of the laser field.
Coherent control of quantum phenomena can be achieved by using phase- and amplitude modulated laser pulses. With a self-learning loop, which combines a femtosecond pulse shaper, an optimization algorithm and an experimental feedback signal, it is possible to automatically steer the interaction between system and electric field. This approach allows control even without any knowledge of the Hamiltonian. We have successfully implement this learning loop for the coherent control of the nonresonant two-photon excitation in sodium. New solutions for 'bright' and 'dark' pulses could be designed for this two-photon resonance without previous knowledge of the resonances. In a further experiment we combined the self-learning loop with degenerate four-wave-mixing spectroscopy in order to study the influence of phase and amplitude modulated pulses on the molecular FWM response of the prototype system K2. The obtained control pulses typically show a complex structure which hides the responsible physical mechanism. In order to extract the applied mechanism the concept of parameterization has been introduced which allows the learning algorithm to optimize already known control processes. Therefore the control of vibrational wavepacket motion in the electronic ground and excited state could be attributed to chirped pulse excitation, impulsive Raman excitation by pulse trains and phase-related double pulses representing the well-known Tannor-Rice-Kosloff control scheme.
Linearly chirped femtosecond laser pulses are used to excite ro-vibrational wave packets in lithium dimers from a single well-prepared launch state. Two-photon resonant Raman transitions excite a manifold of rotational states in a coherent superposition. Excitation with positively chirped laser pulses is shown to enhance a quantum beat involving states with lower rotational quantum numbers, whereas negatively chirped pulses enhance a quantum beat between states with higher rotational quantum numbers, thus steering the rotational coherences to higher or lower rotational states. Time-dependent perturbation theory calculations verify the magnitudes and directions of the enhancement as a function of the applied chirp. The quantitative calculations and experimental results demonstrate that excitation with chirped pulses is an effective method for enhancing specific rotational coherences involving higher or lower rotational states.
We have demonstrated that coherent molecular modulation can result in the collinear generation of mutually-coherent spectral sidebands that extend in frequency from the infrared to the far ultraviolet. Our technique is based on adiabatic preparation of a highly coherent molecular superposition-state, which is achieved by using narrow-linewidth lasers slightly detuned from a Raman resonance. The phases of the resultant Stokes and anti-Stokes sidebands are adjusted in order to synthesize desired single-cycle pulse trains at the target. In this article we review recent improvements and developments in this area, including: techniques for increasing the number of generated sidebands; synchronization of the pulse trains with the molecular motion in the given molecular system; laser self-focusing and spatial soliton formation due to the coherent interaction of light with oscillating molecules. In the future, this Raman source may produce sub-cycle optical pulses, and allow synthesis of waveforms where the electric field is a predetermined function of time, not limited to a quasi-sinusoidal oscillation.