Adiabatic Passage by Light-Induced Potentials in Molecules

We present the process of adiabatic passage by light-induced potentials for transferring a wave packet from one molecular potential to the displaced ground vibrational state of another. The process uses a counterintuitive sequence of light pulses to couple three molecular states. It shares many features with the process of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage, such as high efficiency and insensitivity to pulse parameters. However, in the former there is no two-photon resonance, and the main mechanism for the transport of the wave packet is a light-induced potential.