Abstract

Among various photon echo phenomena which have been predicted and observed in vapours [1], stimulated photon echo (three pulse echo) is a very attractive tool to investigate angular dependence of collisional processes. Already applied to the study of small angle elastic scattering [2] this method may also prove adequate for studying quasi-resonant inelastic processes involving excited species such as depolarizing collisions, collisional transitions between hyperfine, fine or rotational sublevels, energy pooling collisions. For all these processes total cross sections have already been obtained in the past by different experimental ways. However they deserve to be reexamined in the perspective of their angular dependence.

© 1984 Optical Society of America