Time domain separation of nuclear and electronic contributions to the third-order nonlinearity in glasses

Summary form only given.We report the observation of a nuclear nonresonant vibrational contribution in glasses with 100-fs pulses. In the glasses studied, the nuclear contribution to the third-order nonlinearity varies from 15 to 20%. The over-dampened nuclear time responses are in very good agreement with Raman spectra. These results were achieved by means of heterodyne time-resolved optical Kerr measurements using 100-fs cw mode-locked Ti:sapphire pulses.