Slow and Fast Response of the Optical Kerr Effect

Abstract

The optical Kerr effect (0 K E) results in a transient anisotropy induced in a material in which travels an intense polarized beam. The kinetics of the different mechanisms involved in this effect may be discriminated by the use of laser pulses of adequate duration. We present new results on, at least, two of the usually proposed mechanisms [l,2].In a first part, we describe a double beam apparatus, working in the picosecond range, which demonstrates that many non saturated organic compounds exhibit a fast non resolved response superimposed upon the slower decay of molecular origin. In a second part, we present preliminary results obtained with a subpicosecond laser setup.