It is well known that area pulses make Rabi oscillation and chirped pulses in the adiabatic interaction regime induce complete population inversion of a two-state system. Here we show that chirped zero-area pulses could engineer an interplay between the adiabatic evolution and Rabi-like rotations. In a proof-of-principle experiment utilizing spectral chirping of femtosecond laser pulses with a resonant spectral hole, we demonstrate that the chirped zero-area pulses could induce, for example, complete population inversion and return of the cold rubidium atom two-state system. Experimental result agrees well with the theoretically considered overall dynamics, which could be approximately modeled to a Ramsey-like three-pulse interaction, where the $x$ and $z$ rotations are driven by the hole and the main pulse, respectively.

• Received 23 August 2015

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.93.023423