  We introduce a procedure to measure the density matrix of a material system.
The density matrix is addressed locally in this scheme by applying a sequence
of delayed light pulses. The procedure is based on the stimulated Raman
adiabatic passage (STIRAP) technique. It is shown that a series of population
measurements on the target state of the population transfer process yields
unambiguous information about the populations and coherences of the addressed
states, which therefore can be determined.
