Physical Review A
Enhancing photoassociation efficiency by using a picosecond laser pulse with cubic-phase modulation
Wei Zhang, Ting Xie, Yin Hui Huang, Shu‐Lin Cong
Abstract
The photoassociation (PA) dynamics of ultracold cesium atoms steered by the picosecond laser pulse with cubic-phase modulation has been investigated theoretically by solving numerically the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation using the mapped Fourier grid method. The temporal duration of the pulse is prolonged, and the pulse area is enlarged by modulating the cubic phase. The PA efficiency is related to the pulse area. When the pulse area is larger than a certain value, the cubic-phase pulses noticeably enhance the PA efficiency, although they have lower energies.