Conjugated oligomers of thiophene have recently become a new class of molecular semiconductors with potential applications in microelectronics. We show here that these compounds are also attractive third-order nonlinear optical materials with potential applications in optical signal processing We report on the picosecond photoinduced dichroism of thiophene oligomers alpha-nT (n=2-6) in solution and thin film, Spectral concentration in the excited state is identified as the key phenomenon to design a prototype incoherent-to-coherent optical converter (ICOC). Vacuum deposited thin films of the model sexithiophene alpha-6T meet the material requirements to achieve 1 pJ/pixel exposure sensitivity in the MHz frequency range.