Mid-Infrared Femtosecond Pulse Shaping and its Applications to Light-Matter Control

Abstract

Mid-infrared (MIR) ultrashort pulses have been successfully applied to nonlinear vibrational spectroscopy and have proved useful in unravelling structural/vibrational dynamics of molecular systems. MIR pulses might also provide a powerful tool to control the dynamics/reaction of matter at the electronic ground state and to drive strong-field phenomena. Here we present techniques of coherent spectral expansion and waveform shaping in MIR, both of which are important for light-matter control experiments, and an example where the pulse shaping is applied to vibrational ladder climbing.