Femtosecond photon echoes in molecular aggregates

Two-pulse four-wave-mixing signals from molecular aggregates, including effects of two-exciton states, static disorder, and exciton-phonon interaction represented by arbitrary spectral densities are calculated. Three types of contributions to the signal are identified. The first, reflecting exciton self-correlation, is similar to the photon echo from disordered two-level systems and dominates the signal for long time-delays. The second is related to correlations of one-exciton states, whereas the third reflects correlations between one-and two-exciton states. The information gained by completely resolving the signal field (both amplitude and phase) is analyzed using Wigner spectrograms. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.