Abstract
We present a new interaction geometry for optical Ramsey fringes comprised of four traveling waves instead of the three usual standing waves. First, we demonstrate experimentally that the new method leads to an improved contrast, using the optothermal detection of the vibrational excitation of in a supersonic beam illuminated by a waveguide laser. Second, we give a simple theoretical description of the method, using evolution matrices of spinors and pseudospin-vector representations of these spinors. Finally, we introduce strong-field density-matrix diagrams to discuss the differences between the various interaction geometries as well as between the Ramsey fringes and the usual stimulated photon echoes.
- Received 12 January 1984
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.30.1836
©1984 American Physical Society