%0 Journal Article %T Precise alignment of a longitudinal Pockels cell for time-resolved circular dichroism experiments %+ Laboratoire d'optique et biosciences (LOB) %A Dartigalongue, Thibault %A Hache, François %< avec comité de lecture %@ 0740-3224 %J Journal of the Optical Society of America B %I Optical Society of America %V 20 %N 8 %P 1780 %8 2003 %D 2003 %R 10.1364/JOSAB.20.001780 %Z Physics [physics]/Physics [physics]/Optics [physics.optics]Journal articles %X Artifacts in time-resolved circular dichroism experiments are carefully analyzed. We show that alignment of the longitudinal Pockels cell that modulates the laser polarization in such experiments is crucial. By developing a calculation of the behavior of a slightly misaligned Pockels cell, we are able to propose a simple alignment procedure. This procedure is based on the use of an analyzer at 0° or 45° of the Pockels cell axes, and it allows us to improve the alignment by 3 orders of magnitude and to reduce the artifact below the noise level in our experimental setup. Cop. 2003 Optical Society of America. %G English %2 https://polytechnique.hal.science/hal-00836929/document %2 https://polytechnique.hal.science/hal-00836929/file/josab-20-8-1780.pdf %L hal-00836929 %U https://polytechnique.hal.science/hal-00836929 %~ INSERM %~ X %~ CNRS %~ X-LOB %~ X-DEP %~ X-DEP-BIO %~ TEST3-HALCNRS