We present a theoretical description of a scheme in which coordinated laser pulses transfer population efficiently from any initially populated state (e.g., the ground state) to a multiply excited state of an atom or molecule without producing appreciable population in intermediate states. Our analytic results for multilevel excitation transfer provide a simple yet instructive extension to the counterintuitive pulse sequence studied previously for a three-state system.

• Received 21 June 1991

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.44.7442