Preparation of an Exponentially Rising Optical Pulse for Efficient   Excitation of Single Atoms in Free Space
  We report on a simple method to prepare optical pulses with exponentially rising envelope on the time scale of a few ns. The scheme is based on the exponential transfer function of a fast transistor, which generates an exponentially rising envelope that is transferred first on a radio frequency carrier, and then on a coherent cw laser beam with an electro-optical phase modulator (EOM). The temporally shaped sideband is then extracted with an optical resonator and can be used to efficiently excite a single Rb-87 atom. 
Hoang Lan Dao, Syed Abdullah Aljunid, Gleb Maslennikov, Christian   Kurtsiefer
quant-ph physics.optics