A polarization scheme that resolves cross-peaks with transient absorption and eliminates diagonal peaks in 2D spectroscopy.

Two-dimensional (2D) optical spectroscopy contains cross-peaks that are helpful features for determining molecular structure and monitoring energy transfer, but they can be difficult to resolve from the much more intense diagonal peaks. Transient absorption (TA) spectra contain transitions similar to cross-peaks in 2D spectroscopy, but in most cases they are obscured by the bleach and stimulated emission peaks. We report a polarization scheme, <0°,0°,+θ(t),-θ(t)>, that can be easily implemented in the pump-probe beam geometry, used most frequently in 2D and TA spectroscopy. This scheme removes the diagonal peaks in 2D spectroscopies and the intense bleach/stimulated emission peaks in TA spectroscopies, thereby resolving the cross-peak features. At zero pump-probe delay, θ = 60° destructively interferes two Feynman paths, eliminating all signals generated by field interactions with four parallel transition dipoles, and the intense diagonal and bleach/stimulated emission peaks. At later delay times, θ(t) is adjusted to compensate for anisotropy caused by rotational diffusion. When implemented with TA spectroscopy or microscopy, the pump-probe spectrum is dominated by the cross-peak features. The local oscillator is also attenuated, which enhances the signal two times. This overlooked polarization scheme reduces spectral congestion by eliminating diagonal peaks in 2D spectra and enables TA spectroscopy to measure similar information given by cross-peaks in 2D spectroscopy.