Observation of Transient and Stationary Zeeman Coherence by Polarization Spectroscopy

Abstract

The method of Doppler-free laser polarization spectroscopy /1/ relies on the sharply resonant behaviour of the complex susceptibility of a sample under conditions of velocity-selective holeburning.It is the aim of this paper to demonstrate that making use of light induced birefringence and dichroism connected with the existence of coherence between substates of atomic or molecular states is another useful approachto high-resolution laser spectroscopy. In the simplest type of experiment following this scheme, a first laser beam creates coherence in a sample and the resulting optical anisotropy is detected by transmitting a second beam through a system of crossed polarizers with the coherently excited sample placed in between. Geometrical arrangements can be found, where the transmission is governed by the coherence only.