Optical limiting of short laser pulses

The dynamics of pulse propagation accompanied by harmonic generation, stimulated Raman scattering, amplified spontaneous emission, and superfluorescence is studied near the two-photon resonance. We explore the optical limiting of intense and short laser pulses. The numerical solutions of the coupled Bloch and Maxwell's equations for the 4,4(')-bis(dimethylamino) stilbene molecule are compared with the two-photon area theorem. It is shown that the area theorem explains qualitatively the major dynamical properties of pulse propagation even if the propagation is accompanied by the generation of new fields. In agreement with the area theorem, we see that the conventional dependence of the transmittance on the propagation depth is not valid for intense pulses.