Studies of resonant and preresonant femtosecond degenerate four-wave mixing in unoriented conducting polymers

Degenerate four-wave mixing with femtosecond time resolution is used to measure the magnitude and transient response of the third-order nonlinear optical susceptibility x(3) (ω;ω, -ω,ω) at 620 nm in nonoriented conducting polymers including polydiacetylene, polyacetylene, polyaniline, polydiethynylsilane, polythiophene, and polythiophene derivatives. Resonant and nonresonant excitations influence the magnitude and transient response of xc3'. The electronic response is instantaneous for preresonant excitation, but for resonant excitation it has ultrafast and slow components which illustrate photoexcitation dynamics. The magnitude Of X (3) for all of the polymers is in the range from 10 - 10 to 5 X 10 - 8 esu depending on the energy difference between the laser excitation and the polymer absorption maximum.