Ultrafast UV photon echo peak shift and fluorescence up conversion studies of non-polar solvation dynamics

We present photon echo peak shift and femtosecond fluorescence up-conversion studies of non-polar solvation dynamics of a simple non-polar dye p-terphenyl in ethanol and cyclohexane, using excitation in the UV range at 290 nm. The UV fluorescence up-conversion experiments were combined with a polychromatic detection and the results highlight the high sensitivity of this approach to fully characterize the excited state dynamics of the dye. We also demonstrate the feasibility of UV photon echo and transient grating and its sensitivity for the detection of non-polar solvation dynamics by measuring the frequency correlation function of the dye in the ground state. While solvation dynamics in the picosecond regime is observed in ethanol, electronic coherence dephasing occurs on timescales faster than 100 fs in ethanol as well as in the non-polar solvent cyclohexane. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.