title: Perspective: Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage: The status after 25 years.
abstract: The first presentation of the STIRAP (stimulated Raman adiabatic passage) technique with proper theoretical foundation and convincing experimental data appeared 25 years ago, in the May 1st, 1990 issue of The Journal of Chemical Physics. By now, the STIRAP concept has been successfully applied in many different fields of physics, chemistry, and beyond. In this article, we comment briefly on the initial motivation of the work, namely, the study of reaction dynamics of vibrationally excited small molecules, and how this initial idea led to the documented success. We proceed by providing a brief discussion of the physics of STIRAP and how the method was developed over the years, before discussing a few examples from the amazingly wide range of applications which STIRAP now enjoys, with the aim to stimulate further use of the concept. Finally, we mention some promising future directions.
authors.affiliation: Fachbereich Physik und Forschungszentrum OPTIMAS, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, Kaiserslautern, Germany.
authors.forename: Klaas
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Bergmann
authors.affiliation: Department of Physics, St. Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia, James Bourchier 5 Blvd., 1164 Sofia, Bulgaria.
authors.forename: Nikolay V
authors.initials: NV
authors.lastname: Vitanov
authors.affiliation: 618 Escondido Circle, Livermore, California 94550, USA.
authors.forename: Bruce W
authors.initials: BW
authors.lastname: Shore