Femtosecond transient grating studies in CS<inf>2</inf>

We explore transient grating formation in CS2 with femtosecond pulses. The spatially periodic excitation changes the nonlinear refractive index of the medium periodically, resulting in diffraction of the probe beam. The pump power dependence of the self-diffraction efficiency shows a second order power-law indicating the process involving a third-order nonlinearity. Time-resolved diffraction of the probe beam measured with a photodiode gives the third-order autocorrelated signal. CS2 having large third order nonlinearity in a broad range of wavelengths in the visible and near-infrared, is proposed to be a promising candidate for measuring the pulse-widths for pulses generated from optical parametric amplifiers (OPA) using this technique.