HYPERFINE STRUCTURES OF PRASEODYMIUM IONS IN SOLIDS USING STIMULATED-PHOTON-ECHO MODULATION

We report a systematic study of the stimulated-photon-echo relaxation on the 3P0-H-3(4) transition of Pr3+:LaF3 and the 3P0-H-3(4) and 1D2-H-3(4) transitions of Pr3+:YAG (yttrium aluminum garnet). The stimulated-echo intensity is measured as a function of the delay between the first and the second pulses and the delay between the second and the third pulses. The stimulated-echo relaxation is modulated by the hyperfine interaction in the ground and the excited electronic states. We find that the modulation patterns can be quite distinct from those for two-pulse photon-echo relaxation and give complementary information about the hyperfine structures. We use the density-matrix theory of stimulated-photon-echo modulation, and the resulting simulation shows satisfactory agreement with the experimental data.