Separating Vibrational Coherences in Ground/Excited Electronic States of Solvent/Solute Following Non-Resonant/Resonant Impulsive Excitation

In a quest to track down the origin of coherent vibrational motions observed in femtosecond pump-probe transients, whether they arise from ground/excited electronic state of solute or are contributed by the solvent, we demonstrate a method for extricating vibrations under resonant and non-resonant impulsive excitations using a diatomic solute in condensed phase (iodine in carbon tetrachloride) with aid of spectral dispersion of the chirped broadband probe. Most importantly, we show how a sum over intensities for a select region of detection wavelengths and Fourier transform of data over select temporal window untwine contributions from vibrational modes of different origins. Thus, in a single pump-probe experiment, vibrational features specific to solute as well as solvent are disentangled that are otherwise spectrally overlapping and are non-separable in conventional (spontaneous/stimulated) Raman spectroscopy employing narrowband excitation. We envision wide-ranging applications of this method to unveil vibrational features in complex molecular systems.