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arXiv:1609.07406 · Physical review. B./Physical review. B

Optical decoherence and spectral diffusion in an erbium-doped silica glass fiber featuring long-lived spin sublevels

Lucile Veissier, Mohsen Falamarzi Askarani, Thomas Lutz, Erhan Sağlamyürek, Charles W. Thiel, R. L. Cone, Wolfgang Tittel

Published Nov 21, 2016• 25 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Understanding decoherence in cryogenically cooled rare-earth-ion doped glass fibers is of fundamental interest and a prerequisite for applications of these material in quantum information applications. Here we study the coherence properties in a weakly doped erbium silica glass fiber motivated by our recent observation of efficient and long-lived Zeeman sublevel storage in this material and by its potential for applications at telecommunication wavelengths. We analyze photon echo decays as well as the potential mechanisms of spectral diffusion that can be caused by coupling with dynamic disorder modes that are characteristic for glassy hosts, and by the magnetic dipole-dipole interactions between ${\mathrm{Er}}^{3+}$ ions. We also investigate the effective linewidth as a function of magnetic field, temperature, and time, and then present a model that describes these experimental observations. We highlight that the operating conditions (0.6 K and 0.05 T) at which we previously observed efficient spectral hole burning coincide with those for narrow linewidths (1 MHz)---an important property for applications that has not been reported before for a rare-earth-ion doped glass.

DOI
10.1103/physrevb.94.195138

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Journal of the Optical Society of America B•Feb 1, 2004•8 citations
Understanding decoherence in cryogenically cooled rare-earth-ion doped glass fibers is of fundamental interest and a prerequisite for applications of these material in quantum information applications. Here we study the coherence properties in a weakly doped erbium silica glass fiber motivated by our recent observation of efficient and long-lived Zeeman sublevel storage in this material and by its potential for applications at telecommunication wavelengths. We analyze photon echo decays as well as the potential mechanisms of spectral diffusion that can be caused by coupling with dynamic disorder modes that are characteristic for glassy hosts, and by the magnetic dipole-dipole interactions between Er3+{\mathrm{Er}}^{3+}Er3+ ions. We also investigate the effective linewidth as a function of magnetic field, temperature, and time, and then present a model that describes these experimental observations. We highlight that the operating conditions (0.6 K and 0.05 T) at which we previously observed efficient spectral hole burning coincide with those for narrow linewidths (1 MHz)---an important property for applications that has not been reported before for a rare-earth-ion doped glass.
Long-lived population storage in optically pumped levels of rare-earth ions doped into solids, referred to as persistent spectral hole burning, is of significant fundamental and technological interest. However, the demonstration of deep and persistent holes in rare-earth ion doped amorphous hosts, e.g., glasses, has remained an open challenge for many decades---a fact that motivates our work towards a better understanding of the interaction between impurities and vibrational modes in glasses. Here we report the observation and detailed characterization of such holes in an erbium-doped silica glass fiber cooled to below 1 K. We demonstrate population storage in electronic Zeeman sublevels of the erbium ground state with lifetimes up to 30 seconds and 80% spin polarization. In addition to its fundamental aspect, our investigation reveals a potential technological application of rare-earth ion doped amorphous materials, including at telecommunication wavelength.
We use spectral hole burning to investigate spin dynamics within the electronic Zeeman sublevels of the ground state of the erbium ions in erbium-doped fibers (EDF). Conducted at ultra-low temperatures and under varying magnetic fields, our study reveals distinct changes in spin relaxation dynamics across different conditions. We identified three decay components at approximately 7 mK, with one achieving spin lifetimes of over 9 hours under optimal conditions, while two components were observed at higher temperatures. The fairly stable relative weights of the decay components across conditions suggest distinct ion populations contributing to the observed relaxation dynamics. While earlier studies struggled to account for all decay components at higher temperatures, our approach successfully models spin dynamics across all observed decay components, using a consistent set of underlying mechanisms, including spin flip-flop interactions, direct coupling to two-level systems, and Raman-type processes, and distinguishes the decay components by the strengths with which these mechanisms contribute. These results suggest EDFs' potential as a promising candidate for quantum memory applications, with further room for optimization.
We show that rare-earth (RE-) doped glasses can have homogeneous linewidths as narrow as 287 kHz at (4)He temperatures. This is far narrower than others reported in glasses in the same temperature range and is suitable for precise spectral hole burning and spatial-spectral holographic applications. It is known that cw spectral hole burning linewidth measurements of RE ions in glasses are hindered by the presence of spectral diffusion but, even in glasses, application of a magnetic field can freeze out RE spin-spin interactions responsible for spectral diffusion and isolate the remaining contribution of two-level systems (TLSs). The Er(3+):2G2S glasses have unusually low TLS contributions, making it possible to study the real homogeneous linewidth using photon echo measurements. The contribution from TLSs is only 170 T(1.3) kHz when subjected to a field of 5 T.
Erbium-doped solids are promising candidates for fiber-based quantum networks due to their emission wavelength, which aligns with the telecom band over which optical fibers exhibit minimal loss. Among these, erbium-doped silica fiber (EDF) stands out for its availability, ease of use, and seamless integration with existing fiber-optic infrastructure. In this work, using the two-pulse photon-echo (2PPE) technique, we measured the homogeneous linewidth of the 4 I 13/2 ↔ 4 I 15/2 optical transition under varying magnetic fields and temperatures. We observed an effective homogeneous linewidth of approximately 8 kHz at ∼7mK at an optimal magnetic field of 0.09 T, representing over two orders of magnitude improvement compared to earlier reports measured at T ≈700mK. We also present a comprehensive model for the combined magnetic field and temperature dependency of the effective homogeneous linewidth. Additionally, we employed three-pulse photon-echo (3PPE) measurements to investigate spectral diffusion and decoherence processes and conclude that Two-Level System (TLS) effects are significantly suppressed at sufficiently low temperatures, below ∼100mK.
Erbium-doped silica fiber (EDF) is evaluated as a telecom-band quantum-memory platform via spectral hole burning at millikelvin temperatures. We map spin-population decay versus temperature (about 7 to 2400 mK) and magnetic field (0 to 200 mT), revealing two relaxation components above about 80 mK and, at about 7 mK, a third, ultra-slow component enabling more than 9 h population storage under optimized field. The relative component weights are nearly condition-independent, consistent with distinct ion classes. A single phenomenological model, combining Er-Er flip-flops, a TLS-mediated direct process with field and temperature scaling, and a Raman-like term, fits all data using shared exponents while allowing mechanism weights to vary between classes. We also observe a Lorentzian-to-Gaussian hole-shape crossover below about 80 mK, pointing to changing broadening mechanisms. These results establish long-lived spin-population storage in standard EDF and delineate a practical operating window. They motivate denser measurements across the below-80 mK crossover, isotope-resolved tests, and complementary optical-coherence studies.
We report what is, to the best of our knowledge, the first observation of transient spectral hole burning in erbium-doped fluorozirconate glass around 1.53 μm. Holes deeper than 12% were burnt. A study of the hole width as a function of power density, wavelength, temperature, and erbium concentration has been performed and underlines the role of spectral diffusion. Dynamics of refilling of the holes, involving optical pumping of the long-lived 4I13/2 excited state, was also investigated. The nearly linear temperature dependence of the hole width behaves as reported for other rare-earth ions and is interpreted within the framework of the two-level systems theory. Hole-refilling dynamics has been studied for three different erbium concentrations and is used to interpret the origin of the saturation.