Probing electronic coupling in excitonically coupled heterodimer complexes by two-color three-pulse photon echoes

Following the earlier work of Yang [J. Chem. Phys. 110 (1999) 2983] analytical expressions for the downhill and uphill resonant two-color three-pulse photon echo peak shift (2C-3PEPS) of a heterodimer system are derived in the impulsive limit. It is shown how to obtain information about coupling between the components of the dimer from the combined one- and two-color peak shift measurements. Further analytical relations are derived which enable site specific information about the environment of the components, including the relative difference of the inhomogeneity and the difference between the energy-gap correlation functions on the heterodimer sites to be obtained. The simulations show only a very small influence of the laser pulse length on the measured values of coupling coefficient and other relevant quantities suggesting that current 2C-3PEPS measurements can find practical application in directly measuring couplings in excitonically coupled heterodimer complexes. (C) 2004 American Institute of Physics.