Our research spans the wide fields of solid-state physics, nonlinear optics, and photonics, under the common denominator of using our ability to control laser radiation (in space, time, and frequency) to affect how it interacts with matter. The resulting experiments then deliver information on how light-matter interaction takes place, multi-photon effects, and the electronic states of various materials. Recent activities have been the study of third-order nonlinear optical effects in small organic molecules and their dense assemblies — towards the development of a new paradigm for creating nonlinear optical materials for applications such as optical computing and all-optical switching — and the investigation of a single-crystal organic semiconductors such as rubrene — to understand the physics of photoexcitation, molecular excitons, and exciton or electronic transport.

Experimental facilities include pulsed lasers with pulse duration from hundreds of femtoseconds to picoseconds that are tunable thanks to nonlinear optical parametric processes, and our expertise includes pump and probe and degenerate four-wave mixing experiments, short-pulse induced photocurrent and photoluminescence, multi-photon spectroscopy, and fluorescence dynamics.

Recent Research Stories

Organics for third order nonlinear optics: From Molecules, to Solid state materials, to Devices.

Light, Excitons, and transport in Organic Molecular Crystals.

Experimental methods

Pump and probe transient gratings on picosecond and nanosecond time scales, Degenerate and non-degenerate Four-Wave Mixing, Holographic Time of Flight, Maker Fringes for the characterization of second and third-order nonlinear optical susceptibilities, Hyper Reighley scattering, organic molecular beam deposition, corona poling, absorption and emission spectroscopy, nonlinear optical wavelength conversion, time-resolved fluorescence and photoluminescence, time-resolved photoconductivity.