Pulsed-laser heating with time-resolved multiple probe infrared absorption spectroscopy and tightly focussed pump and probe beams has been applied to induce and study T-jumps in nanoporous zeolite catalysts. The single-shot temperature jumps achieved are 5× larger than those previously described for time-resolved heating studies in solution and enable the possibility of using pulsed laser heating to selectively activate and study heterogeneous catalytic activity in reactive systems.