Use of nonresonant radiation to detect spin-oriented photofragments

A technique is proposed for detecting the anisotropy in the angular distrib ution of photofragment spins on the basis of the birefringence effect. A co mparative analysis is made of the nonresonant method of detection with the conventional resonance absorption method. It is shown that using the Farada y effect facilitates efficient detection of high concentrations of polarize d photofragments. For an optically thick layer this is an important advanta ge over the absorption method. Thus, the proposed method supplements the me thod of detection using magnetic dichroism and permits high fragment concen trations to be studied. (C) 1999 American Institute of Physics. [S1063-7850 (99)02503-3].