Photon echo peak shift experiments in the UV:: p-terphenyl in different solvents

In this article we present a new photon echo set-tip operating in the UV range and our first results of photon echo peak shift (PEPS) experiments of a small non-polar dye molecule, p-terphenyl (pTP), in three different solvents: ethanol, methanol and 2-propanol. The experiments show the feasibility of UV transient grating and photon echo measurements and highlight the sensitivity of this technique for the Study of non-polar solvation dynamics. The transient grating experiments indicate a relaxation of the ground state hole of about 6 ps. The photon echo experiments show that while electronic dephasing occurs on timescales shorter than 100 fs, solvation dynamics timescales are in the picosecond regime, in agreement with the literature. (c) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.