Preparation and characterization of coherent atomic superposition - Frank Vewinger

The coherent control of the internal states of atoms and molecules is of increasing interest, e.g. in quantum optics, coherent control of chemical processes, quantum information processing and many more. Specifically the creation of coherent superpositions allows new possibilities in the mentioned fields. We report on the preparation of superposition states of two or more degenerate levels in a J = 2 metastable state of Neon using extensions of the STIRAP technique developed by Bergmann et al. I will discuss different schemes for the creation of two- and three-state superpositions which allow phase- and amplitude-control. Furthermore I will introduce the scheme of phase-to-population mapping, which is used to characterize coherent superposition states.