Abstract

There are many questions surrounding the configurational relaxation that follows optical excitation of luminescent systems. Fundamental to the resolution of these questions is a measurement of the configurational relaxation time. For systems involving an intimate coupling with phonons, such as organic dyes or color centers, relaxation times are expected to be on the picosecond or subpicosecond time scales, even at zero temperature. Thus, resolution to a very small fraction of a picosecond is required, if the (highly temperature-dependent) relaxation of such systems is to be measured over a significantly wide temperature range. Fortunately, recent developments^1,2 in ultrashort pulse lasers have opened up the possibility of such measurement. This talk concerns one such source, the "soliton laser"², and its use on systems with near-infrared absorption bands.

© 1984 Optical Society of America