Femtosecond dynamic holography in C60 solutions

Abstract

Fullerene molecules (C60, C70, C76) are known to posses unusual nonlinear optical response characteristics, which make them attractive for variety of applications, including optical limiters, recording media and switching devices [1-3]. These nonlinear properties are associated with the fullerene molecules having unique carbon-carbon single-and double bonds and combination of singlet- and triplet excited electronic states. Due to broad spectral range of the nonlinear response, fullerene-based materials may be used for recording of dynamic holograms from UV to near IR. In this paper we present results of experiments, where we study efficient self-diffraction from dynamic gratings recorded in C60 solution in orto-xylene using excitation with energetic 150-fs-duration pulses at 780 nm wavelength.