Angle-resolved coherent wave mixing using a 4 fs ultra-broad bandwidth laser

Abstract

We demonstrate angle-resolved coherent (ARC) wave mixing using 4 fs light pulses derived from a laser source that spans 550–1000 nm. We believe this to be the shortest pulse duration used to date in coherent multi-dimensional spectroscopy. The marriage of this ultra-broad band, few-cycle coherent source with the ARC technique will permit new investigations of the interplay between energy transfers and quantum superposition states spanning 8200 cm−1. We applied this configuration to measurements on the photosynthetic low light (LL) complex from Rhodopseudomonas palustris in solution at ambient temperature. We observe bi-exponential population dynamics for energy transfer across 5500 cm−1 (0.65 eV), which we attribute to energy transfer from the transition of bacteriochlorophylls to the B850 pigment of the complex. We believe for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, we demonstrate that ARC maps can be recorded using a single laser pulse.