A dynamical theory is developed with the purpose of explaining recent experimental results on multiphoton-excited amplified stimulated emission (ASE). Several conspicuous features of this experiment are analyzed, like the threshold dependence of the spectral profile on the pump intensity, and spectral shifts of the ASE pulses co- and counterpropagating relative to the pump pulse. Two models are proposed and evaluated, one based on the isolated molecule and another which involves solvent interaction. The spectral shift between the forward and backward ASE pulses arises in the first model through the competition between the ASE transitions from the pumped vibrational levels and from the bottom of the excited-state well, while in the solvent-related model the dynamical solute-solvent interaction leads to a relaxed excited state, producing an additional ASE channel. In the latter model the additional redshifted ASE channel makes the dynamics of ASE essentially different from that in the molecular model because the formation of the relaxed state takes a longer time. The variation of the pump intensity influences strongly the relative intensities of the different ASE channels and, hence, the spectral shape of ASE in both models. The regime of ASE changes character when the pump intensity crosses a threshold value. Such a phase transition occurs when the ASE rate approaches the rate of vibrational relaxation or the rate of solute-solvent relaxation in the first excited state.

Temporal oscillations of amplified spontaneous emission of molecules are studied theoretically. From the proposed theory and numerical simulations, it is found that the self-pulsations originate in an interplay between stimulated emission and saturable absorption. A stability analysis demonstrates the crucial role of the photoabsorption in this process, which can be regulated by a proper choice of buffer molecules. Variations in the saturable absorption mediate a transition from damped oscillations to self-sustained pulsations. The role of propagation effects as well as of the interaction of co- and counter-propagating pulses is also investigated. Numerical simulations, demonstrating the theoretical findings, are performed for a model 3-level system and for an organic chromophore; 4-[N-(2-hydroxyethyl)-N-(methyl)amino phenyl]-4'-(6-hydroxyhexyl sulphonyl) stilbene.

We present a theory of two-photon absorption that addresses the formation of spectral shapes taking the vibrational degrees of freedom into account. The theory is used to rationalize the observed differences between the spectral shapes of one- and two-photon absorption. We find that the main cause of these differences is that the two-step and coherent two-photon spectral bands are different even considering a single final state. Our formalism is applied to the N101 molecule (p-nitro-p'-diphenylamine stilbene), which was recently studied experimentally. Simulations show that the two-step two-photon electrovibrational absorption results in a blue shift of the absorption spectrum in agreement with the measurements.

A detailed dynamical theory of photobleaching by periodical sequences of laser pulses is presented. The theory is used for interpretation of recent experiments with pyrylium salts. Our simulations are based on first-principles simulations of photoabsorption cross-sections and on empirical rate constants. Two competitive channels of photobleaching, namely, photobleaching from the lowest excited singlet and triplet states and from higher excited states, are found to explain different intensity dependences of the photobleaching rates in different samples. The process includes two-photon excitation from the ground state to the first or second excited singlet states and one-photon excitation from the first singlet or triplet states to higher excited states. The fluorescence follows double-exponential dynamics with two characteristic times. The first and the shorter one is the equilibrium settling time between the ground and the lowest triplet states. The second characteristic time, the time of photobleaching, is responsible for the long-term dynamics. The effective rate of photobleaching from the first excited singlet and lowest triplet states depends differently on the irradiance in comparison with the photobleaching in higher states. The first channel is characterized by a quadratic intensity dependence in contrast to the second channel that shows a cubic dependence. The competition between these photobleaching channels is very sensitive to the rate constants as well as to the repetition rate, the pulse duration, and the peak intensity. The double-exponential decay of the fluorescence is explained by the spatial inhomogeneity C of the light beam. The findings in this work are discussed in terms of the possibility of using many-photon-induced photobleaching for new three-dimensional read-write devices.

We have studied the spectral features of resonant inelastic x-ray scattering of condensed ethylene with vibrational selectivity both experimentally and theoretically. Purely vibrational spectral loss features and coupled electronic and vibrational losses are observed. The one-step theory for resonant soft x-ray scattering is applied, taking multiple vibrational modes and vibronic coupling into account. Our investigation of ethylene underlines that the assignment of spectral features observed in resonant inelastic x-ray scattering of polyatomic systems requires an explicit description of the coupled electronic and vibrational loss features.

We present a dynamic interpretation of resonant x-ray Raman scattering where vibrationally selective excitation into molecular resonances has been employed in comparison with excitation into higher lying continuum states for condensed ethylene and benzene as molecular model systems. In order to describe the purely vibrational spectral loss features and coupled electronic and vibrational losses the one-step theory for resonant soft x-ray scattering is applied, taking multiple vibrational modes and vibronic coupling into account. The scattering profile is found to be strongly excitation energy dependent and to reflect the intermediate states dynamics of the scattering process. In particular, the purely vibrational loss features allow one to map the electronic ground state potential energy surface in light of the excited state dynamics. Our study of ethylene and benzene underlines the necessity of an explicit description of the coupled electronic and vibrational loss features for the assignment of spectral features observed in resonant x-ray Raman scattering at polyatomic systems, which can be done in both a time independent and a time dependent picture. The possibility to probe ground state vibrational properties opens a perspective to future applications of this photon-in-photon-out spectroscopy.