Harnessing the Power of Adiabatic Curve Crossing to Populate the Highly Vibrationally Excited H_{2} (v=7, j=0) Level.

A large ensemble of ∼10^{9} H_{2} (v=7, j=0) molecules is prepared in the collision-free environment of a supersonic beam by transferring nearly the entire H_{2} (v=0, j=0) ground-state population, where v and j are the vibrational and rotational quantum numbers, respectively. This is accomplished by controlling the crossing of the optically dressed adiabatic states using a pair of phase coherent laser pulses. The preparation of highly vibrationally excited H_{2} molecules opens new opportunities to test fundamental physical principles using two loosely bound yet entangled H atoms.