Retrieving physical properties from two-color laser experiments
The team’s discoveries could enable physicists to learn more about processes such as vision and photosynthesis, as well as technologies like solar panels; all of which are driven by ultrafast interactions between light and matter. Their analytical and numerical analyses offer the first indications of the mathematical techniques that can be used to extract physically useful information from raw, pump-probe data. They also provide an initial idea about how this information can be distinguished from the signatures arising from the initial infrared laser.
Suraud and colleagues obtained these findings by considering the responses of systems including helium atoms, diatomic nitrogen molecules, and ionised clusters of sodium, to two-colour pump-probe experiments. The team says their results call for improvements to both experimental and theoretical approaches to the technique. In the future, this could potentially allow physicists to develop robust analytical and numerical toolsets for studying ultrafast interactions between light and matter.