Orientational aspect of transient absorption in solutions

In picosecond spectroscopy transient absorption methods are utilized to measure ground-state repopulation kinetics. Since linearly polarized light pulses from mode-locked lasers are used, the transient absorption characteristics in solutions are governed by the rotational diffusion of the absorbing molecules, too. The theory for isotropic diffusion is given and compared to a measurement on the rhodamine 6G molecule dissolved in solvents of different viscosity using a novel pulse spectrophotometer.