Generation of coherent polaritons in ZnSe with a single ultrafast optical pulse

Summary form only given. The dynamics of phonon-polaritons generated with ultrafast pulses has been an active area of investigation in the past decade. Efforts have been concentrated on the wide-gap perovskites that undergo phase transformations associated with the softening of an optical phonon in order to determine what roles anharmonicity and photon-phonon coupling play in structural phase transitions. Nearly all experiments utilized a forward-folded boxcar four-wave mixing geometry with two pump pulses. The angle between the pump beams was varied in order to provide access to different polariton wave vectors so that wave vector dependent quantities such as the frequency and damping could be measured. We report on the generation of coherent polaritons in ZnSe at 10 K with a single pulse. The modulation of the dielectric susceptibility associated with coherent polariton oscillations excited by a strong pump pulse was detected by a weaker transmitted probe pulse.