Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 10, 2026

Direct Imaging of Laser-driven Ultrafast Molecular Rotation
Published on: February 4, 2017
Coherent control of the optical nonlinear and luminescence anisotropies in molecular thin films by multiphoton
Sébastien Bidault1, Sophie Brasselet, Joseph Zyss
1Laboratoire de Photonique Quantique et Moléculaire, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 8537, Institut d'Alembert, Ecole Normal Supérieure de Cachan, Cachan, France. sebastien.bidault@lpqm.ens-cachan.fr
Abstract:
Photoinduced orientational distributions are implemented with one- and two-photon absorption interference in polymer films containing chromophores that exhibit luminescent and nonlinear properties. The odd- and even-order parameters of the final distribution are probed by simultaneous measurement of second-harmonic generation (SHG) and two-photon fluorescence (TPF). We show the possibility of engineering local SHG and TPF anisotropies by controlling the polarization states and intensities of the writing optical fields. Complex multipolar orders are modeled with an irreducible spherical tensor-based formalism jointly applied to the molecular polarizabilities and field tensors.
Related Concept Videos
UV–Vis Spectroscopy: Molecular Electronic Transitions
Confocal Fluorescence Microscopy
Photoluminescence: Fluorescence and Phosphorescence
A pair of electrons in a...

