Advances in Femtosecond Optical Techniques: Recent Experimental Investigations in the Field of Reaction Dynamics

Abstract

The recent advances in the generation and measurement of ultrashort laser pulses has allowed to push most of the optical methods of investigation such as absorption, polarization and chemiluminescence spectroscopy down to the picosecond (10−12s) and even femtosecond (10−15s) time scale. These new techniques allow now to monitor the molecular dynamics of polar liquids and provide new results in the field of chemical or biochemical reaction dynamics: ultrafast free-radical reactions, intramolecular and intra-ionic dynamical processes.