2p GL-6 Backward Three-Pulse Photon Echo in Na Vapor

Hiroki Nakatsuka, Masayuki Fujita, Masahiro Matsuoka

Virginia O. Lorenz, Steven T. Cundiff, Wei Zhuang +1 more

A. Flusber, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG, Sven R. Hartmann

Makoto Matsuoka, Hiroki Nakatsuka, Masayuki Fujita

Masayuki Fujita, 修治 浅香, Hiroki Nakatsuka +1 more

Backward generation of echoes with three-pulse excitation is discussed in solid and gaseous systems. The backward echo in gases is possible as in solids but with different combinations of incident pulse directions. The first experiments in a gas were performed on the atomic sodium D 1 line in both the nanosecond and the picosecond region. Furthermore, we have observed the first backward echo in a molecular system, that is, in both of the X Σ -A Σ and X Σ -B I I transitions of Na 2 . Decays of the echoes were measured as a function of buffer gas (Ar) pressure, and collisional cross sections due to phase interrupting collisions were evaluated for each of the above cases.

N. W. Carlson, William Randall Babbitt, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG

We experimentally demonstrate that three-excitation-pulse (i.e., stimulated) photon echo signals can be backward-propagating, phase-conjugate replicas of the second echo-excitation pulse. Working on the 555.6-nm absorption line of atomic Yb vapor, echo signals, effectively 0.5% as intense as the second excitation pulse, are shown to reproduce image information carried by the second excitation pulse even when wave-front distorters are employed.