Temporal phase control of bound-bound and bound-free two-photon transitions in NO with two time-delayed cross-polarized pulses

0953-4075; Temporal phase control over the multi-photoionization of NO is investigated experimentally The coherent excitation of the molecular system is achieved by a sequence of two phase-related non-Fourier-transform-limited laser pulses delivered by a nanosecond dye laser, The phase-locked pulses are produced by making use of an actively stabilized interferometer with a tunable pathlength difference. As the coherence time of the laser is comparable with the inhomogenous dephasing time of the medium, the measurements are performed with temporally overlapped pulses. In order to avoid the modulation of the ionic signal coming from optical interference, the linear polarizations of the two pu…