Alignment of electronic angular momentum by stimulated raman scattering with delayed pulses

The recently developed STIRAP-technique (J. Chem. Phys. 92, 5363 (1990)) is applied to efficient population transfer and alignment of metastable Ne* atoms. Alignment parameters in the range ?0.3≧A ₀ ² ≧?1.0 are observed. The degree of alignment can be controlled by changing the angle between the field vectors of the linearly polarized pump- and Stokes-lasers. The transfer efficiency depends also on this angle. The results of numerical calculations agree satisfactorily with the experimental data.