Title of dissertation : THE OPTICAL KERR EFFECT OF LIQUIDS

Title of dissertation: THE OPTICAL KERR EFFECT OF LIQUIDS Xiang Zhu, Doctor of Philosophy, 2007 Dissertation directed by: Professor John T. Fourkas Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry Optical Kerr effect (OKE) spectroscopy has found broad use in monitoring ultrafast dynamics in transparent media. I demonstrated that by using two pump pulses with independently-controllable polarizations, intensity and timing, different contributions to the OKE signal in liquids can be enhanced and suppressed, and I characterize in detail perpendicularly-polarized pulses used for the excitation step in OKE spectroscopy. The results indicate that the signal can be described well as arising from the sum of independent third-order responses initiated by each pump