Abstract

It has been generally accepted that the off-resonance heterodyne optical field in Stark-switching and frequency-switching techniques does not have any measurable influence in photon echo and other related experiments. In this work we present theoretical and experimental evidence that through a previously unknown memory effect the heterodyne field produces important undulations in the decay curves of photon echo. This effect appears to be also responsible for other experimental anomalies observed in optical coherent transient effects.¹

© 1989 Optical Society of America