Ultrafast optical probes of excited states in conducting polymers

We Present an overview on picosecond optical probes of excited states in conducting polymers, including transient photoluminescence, polarization memory, photomodulation and transient strain spectroscopy. We demonstrate their potential to elucidate the nature of the primary photoexcitations in both luminescent and nonluminescent polymers, and to detect various excitonic states of Ag and Bu parity symmetries.