Generation of elliptically polarized nitrogen ion laser fields using two-color femtosecond laser pulses

We experimentally investigate generation of nitrogen molecular ion ([Image: see text]) lasers with two femtosecond laser pulses at different wavelengths. The first pulse serves as the pump which ionizes the nitrogen molecules and excites the molecular ions to excited electronic states. The second pulse serves as the probe which leads to stimulated emission from the excited molecular ions. We observe that changing the angle between the polarization directions of the two pulses gives rise to elliptically polarized [Image: see text] laser fields, which is interpreted as a result of strong birefringence of the gain medium near the wavelengths of the [Image: see text] laser.