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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

Vibrational excitation of hydrogen molecules by two-photon absorption and third-harmonic generation

Yuki Miyamoto, Hideaki Hara, T. Hiraki, Takahiko Masuda, N. Sasao, Satoshi Uetake, A. Yoshimi, K. Yoshimura, M. Yoshimura

Published Nov 1, 2017• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract We report the coherent excitation of the vibrational state of hydrogen molecules by two-photon absorption and the resultant third-harmonic generation (THG). Parahydrogen molecules cooled by liquid nitrogen are irradiated by mid-infrared nanosecond pulses at 4.8 μ m with a nearly Fourier-transform-limited linewidth. The first excited vibrational state of parahydrogen is populated by two-photon absorption of the mid-infrared photons. Because of the narrow linewidth of the mid-infrared pulses, coherence between the ground and excited states is sufficient to induce higher-order processes. Near-infrared photons from the THG are observed at 1.6 μ m. The dependence of the intensity of the near-infrared radiation on mid-infrared pulse energy, target pressure, and cell length is determined. We used a simple formula for THG with consideration of realistic experimental conditions to explain the observed results.

DOI
10.1088/1361-6455/aa9782

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Abstract We report the coherent excitation of the vibrational state of hydrogen molecules by two-photon absorption and the resultant third-harmonic generation (THG). Parahydrogen molecules cooled by liquid nitrogen are irradiated by mid-infrared nanosecond pulses at 4.8 μ m with a nearly Fourier-transform-limited linewidth. The first excited vibrational state of parahydrogen is populated by two-photon absorption of the mid-infrared photons. Because of the narrow linewidth of the mid-infrared pulses, coherence between the ground and excited states is sufficient to induce higher-order processes. Near-infrared photons from the THG are observed at 1.6 μ m. The dependence of the intensity of the near-infrared radiation on mid-infrared pulse energy, target pressure, and cell length is determined. We used a simple formula for THG with consideration of realistic experimental conditions to explain the observed results.
We report on coherent enhancement of two-photon emission from the excited vibrational state of molecular hydrogen triggered by irradiating mid-infrared pulses externally. We previously observed the two-photon emission triggered by the internally generated fourth Stokes photons. By injecting independent mid-infrared pulses externally, it is possible to control the experimental parameters and investigate the mechanism in more detail. In this article, we describe the two-photon emission using the external trigger pulses. Its spectrum and dependence on the energy and timing of the trigger pulse are presented along with numerical simulations based on the Maxwell–Bloch equations. The measured number of emitted photons is |6×10116 \times 10^{11}6×1011|photons/pulse and the resulting enhancement factor from the spontaneous emission is more than 10|18^{18}18|⁠. This value is three orders of magnitude higher than that of the previous experiment. External control of the emission process is expected to be essential for observation of the weaker process of radiative emission of a neutrino pair.
We report the observation of two-photon emission from a coherently excited vibrational state of solid parahydrogen, which is also a known quantum solid. Coherence between the ground and the excited states is prepared by stimulated Raman scattering using two visible laser pulses. The two-photon emission is triggered by another mid-infrared laser pulse. It was observed that the two-photon emission persists even when the trigger pulse is injected long after the excitation. This is due to the long decoherence time of the vibrational states of solid parahydrogen. It is found that the emission intensity increases even after the excitation pulses pass through the target completely. This coherence development is highly suppressed at high target temperatures and high residual orthohydrogen concentrations. Effects of target annealing and laser-induced damage on the target are also observed.
Abstract We observed two-photon emission (TPE) signal from the first vibrationally excited state of parahydrogen gas coherently excited by counter-propagating laser pulses. A single narrow-linewidth laser source has roles in the excitation of the parahydrogen molecules and the induction of the TPE process. We measured dependences of the signal energy on the detuning, target gas pressure, and input pulse energies. These results are qualitatively consistent with those obtained by numerical simulations based on Maxwell–Bloch equations with one spatial dimension and one temporal dimension. This study of the TPE process in the counter-propagating injection scheme is an important step toward neutrino mass spectroscopy.
A numerical investigation is made of third harmonic generation (THG) under conditions of two-photon resonance between the fundamental frequency and a selected transition in the atoms of a medium. It is shown that under conditions of coherent interaction between the pump pulse and the medium, a THG efficiency of ∼20% or higher may be achieved. In this case, THG in the form of high-power ultrashort pulses may be obtained. It is shown that experimental observation of similar effects in specific media should not present particular difficulties.
We investigate the third order harmonic generation for model atoms interacting with intense short laser pulses. We focus on the cases where the ponderomotive energy is not big enough to generate high-order harmonics, and where resonant transitions between bound states are also as important as multi-photon ionization and low-order harmonic generation. We find that the third order harmonic intensity from a model hydrogen atom can decrease as the laser frequency draws near a resonance between bound states. We explain this result by looking into the ionization and Rabi oscillation from the numerical calculation of the time-dependent 1-D Schrödinger equation. In order to support our explanation we also investigate the populations of bound states that play an important role in this atomic process.
We report the application of third-harmonic generation (THG) to study photon-echo-associated coherent molecular states. Two temporally separated circularly polarized laser pulses are focused into a cell containing I(2) vapor to create the coherent dipole moments. A delayed oppositely circularly polarized pulse is then focused into the same region to generate the third harmonic. Since no THG can be produced by any individual pulse, correlated THG may easily be measured without using any fast detection scheme.