Raman Heterodyne Detection of Nuclear Magnetic Resonance

An optical heterodyne technique based on the coherent Raman effect is demonstrated for detecting nuclear magnetic resonances (NMR) and coherent spin transients in normal and optically excited impurity-ion solids at low temperature. Initial measurements on ${\mathrm{Pr}}^{3+}$: La${\mathrm{F}}_3$ provide the first spin-echo studies of an electronically excited state, and cw resonances yield NMR line centers and shapes with kilohertz precision.