Optical control of a spin switch in the weak spin-orbit coupling limit

A method to optically control a dark transition, for instance, the coupling between different spin states, is proposed. The control is achieved by manipulating the direction, amplitude, and duration of dynamic Stark shifts. Laser-driven spin switches can be prepared by conveniently generalizing different optical techniques, such as π-pulse schemes and adiabatic passage schemes. The efficiency and robustness of the schemes is analyzed for both two-level and multilevel systems, implying quantum state selective wave packet transfer between states of different multiplicity