Abstract

Multiphoton excitation is describable in terms of rate equations^1,2 when the generalized n-photon Rabi frequency and the excited-state photo-ionization rate are much less than the laser bandwidth. This is generally the case when powerful excimer lasers are used to excite atomic levels in rare gases. The two photon excitation rate may be written as where ω₁ and ω₂ are the frequencies of lasers 1 and 2 respectively, I₁ and I₂ are the laser intensities, G(ω₁, ω₂) is the bandwidth-dependent line-shape function and α is the two-photon excitation parameter defined by Eq. (1).

© 1982 Optical Society of America