Thermal, structural, and orientational relaxation of supercooled salol studied by polarization-dependent impulsive stimulated scattering

Time-resolved transient grating experiments with various polarizations are used to separate different responses and measure their dynamics in supercooled liquid salol. A contribution to signal from orientational alignment induced by flow that arises from thermal expansion is demonstrated. This contribution is distinct from that due to orientational alignment induced directly by the excitation light through the molecular polarizability anisotropy (i.e., through the optical Kerr effect). It is also distinct from signal contributions due to density modulations induced by thermal expansion. The results offer additional insight into salol dynamics and into time-dependent transient grating measurements of this class. Depending on the light polarizations used, any of the signal contributions can be eliminated or highlighted. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.