Observation of laser-induced inelastic collisions

We describe two new experiments which demonstrate laser-induced inelastic collisions. Energy was stored in the Sr $5p^{1}P^{o}$ state and selectively transferred both to the Ca $4{p}^{2}^{1}S$ and $5d^{1}D$ states. The collision cross sections maximized at the interatomic wavelengths of 4977 and 4711 \AA{}, respectively, and had a half-power width of about 14 ${\mathrm{cm}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$.