Interferometric pump-probe study of intense field excitation of sapphire -art. no. 053901

Under intense optical excitation, the polarizability of transparent optical materials has a significant third order, nonlinear contribution. This mani fests itself in a wide variety of effects, which, under certain conditions, are collectively referred to as white light continuum generation. We repor t on a new approach that isolates, for the first time, some of these effect s.