Abstract
Experimental results were obtained at the inter-combination transition (6s2) 1S0 ↔ (6s6p) 3P1 (type 0 ↔ 1) of 174Y b vapour for several combinations of linear and circular polarizations of three exciting pulses. A peculiar case appears when the first pulse has linear polarization crossed with the polarizations of the second and third exciting pulses: the stimulated photon echo (SPE) does not appear in pure ytterbium; dilution of ytterbium by Xe implies a collision induced SPE with non-monotonic amplitude dependence on buffer pressure, and with polarization along the first exciting pulse. For circular polarizations, when the first exciting pulse has polarization opposite to the circular polarizations of the second and third pulses, the SPE does not appear either in pure ytterbium vapour or in its mixture with a heavy atomic buffer. SPE polarization dependence on the third exciting pulse area was demonstrated. This result may be of interest for optical data processing. All the results agree with theoretical predictions.