The development with time of the excitation of a transition between two atomic or molecular energy levels under the influence of monochromatic laser radiation is examined under conditions of strictly inhomogeneous line broadening due to such causes as doppler shift arising from translational velocity. The ratio of the number of molecules,
N
2
, in an excited state to the total number,
N
, is calculated for various ratios of the intensity parameter
β
═
E
0
μ
/
ħ
to the half line-width
∆
, where
E
0
is the amplitude of the electric field in the incident radiation and is the dipole moment matrix element for the transition. Excitation functions obtained in a previous paper (I) for various values of the ratio
γ/β
, where
γ
is the half line-width in the absence of inhomogeneous broadening, are used to obtain the variation of
N
2
/
N
with time under conditions of mixed broadening for various values of the ratio
γ/∆
and
γ/β
, when the exciting radiation is in exact resonance with the central frequency of the transition.
Comparison of short pulse generation schemes for a soft x-ray free electron laser
