Single-Shot Femtosecond Spectroscopy of Reactive Organic Molecular Crystals

Abstract
Recent progress in single-shot femtosecond spectroscopy is described. This methodology is necessary for ultrafast time-resolved observation of solid-state chemical reactions, since the build-up of reaction products which cannot be flowed away or otherwise conveniently removed causes spectroscopic signals to change (and samples to undergo deterioration) as a particular region of the sample is irradiated many times. The first single-shot femtosecond observations of molecular vibrations and of short-time response in a photoreactive crystal are discussed.