Observation of spin-polarized atomic photofragments through the Doppler-resolved Faraday technique

The angular distribution of spin-oriented Rb photofragments produced by pho todissociation of RbI molecules using circularly polarized UV light at 266 nm has been investigated for the first time applying the method of Doppler- resolved paramagnetic Faraday rotation. The observed signals could successf ully be explained as the sum of two contributions being due to incoherent a nd coherent excitation of the RbI molecules. For the ratio of the two corre sponding anisotropy parameters we obtain a value of -0.33 as a preliminary result. (C) 2000 American Institute of Physics. [S0021-9606(00)01505-1].