A physically intuitive approach to nonlinear spectroscopy with practical applications through the modern lens of quantum information and wavepackets, and accompanied by MATLAB® code.

The applications of nonlinear ultrafast spectroscopy are numerous and widespread, and it is an established and indispensable technique for revealing ultrafast processes in modern material, chemical and biochemical research. Unfortunately, it is also a topic that can be daunting to those meeting it for the first time. Assuming just an understanding of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, and making use of many worked examples and accompanied by MATLAB® codes for numerical simulations of spectra, this book delivers a practical and intuitive introduction to the subject for advanced students and researchers. It will also be useful for practitioners, who are already familiar with the subject, but who want to develop a more conceptual understanding.

In this clear text, experienced practitioners present a simple and conceptually intuitive overview of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy using the formalism of quantum processes and wavepacket dynamics. Using this unified framework, the authors provide the reader with simple analytical models, examples and concepts to understand the workings of nonlinear spectroscopy through a pedagogical and physically intuitive approach. The core of the book is the section on pump-probe spectroscopy, as on understanding its mathematical description, more complex and multidimensional spectroscopies become easily understood derivatives.

Readers, once familiar with the material in this text, will be fully equipped with the tools to devise and undertake well reasoned spectroscopic experiments.

Preface
The authors
Glossary of common terms
Introduction
1 The process matrix and how to determine it: Quantum Process Tomography
2 Model systems and energy scales
3 Interaction of light pulses with arrays of chromophores: polarization gratings
4 Interaction of light pulses with arrays of chromophores: wavepackets
5 Putting it all together: QPT and Pump-Probe Spectroscopies
6 Computational methods for spectroscopy simulations
7 Conclusions
A Mathematical description of a short pulse of light
B Validity of time-dependent perturbation theory in the treatment of light-matter interaction
C Many-molecule quantum states of the array of chromophores interacting with coherent light
D Frequency-resolved spectroscopy
E Two-dimensional spectroscopy
F Isotropic averaging of signals

The applications of nonlinear ultrafast spectroscopy are numerous and widespread, and it is an established and indispensable technique for revealing ultrafast processes in modern material, chemical and biochemical research. Unfortunately, it is also a topic that can be daunting to those meeting it for the first time. Assuming just an understanding of quantum mechanics and statistical mechanics, and making use of many worked examples and accompanied by MATLAB® codes for numerical simulations of spectra, this book delivers a practical and intuitive introduction to the subject for advanced students and researchers. It will also be useful for practitioners, who are already familiar with the subject, but who want to develop a more conceptual understanding.

In this clear text, experienced practitioners present a simple and conceptually intuitive overview of ultrafast nonlinear spectroscopy using the formalism of quantum processes and wavepacket dynamics. Using this unified framework, the authors provide the reader with simple analytical models, examples and concepts to understand the workings of nonlinear spectroscopy through a pedagogical and physically intuitive approach. The core of the book is the section on pump-probe spectroscopy, as on understanding its mathematical description, more complex and multidimensional spectroscopies become easily understood derivatives.

Readers, once familiar with the material in this text, will be fully equipped with the tools to devise and undertake well reasoned spectroscopic experiments.