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Physical Review A

Slow light using spectral hole burning in a Tm3+ -doped yttrium-aluminum-garnet crystal

Romain Lauro, T. Chanelière, J.-L. Le Gouët

Published Jun 30, 2009• 29 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We report on light slowing down in a rare-earth-metal-ion-doped crystal by persistent spectral hole burning. The absence of motion of the active ions, the large inhomogeneous broadening, the small homogeneous width, and the long lifetime of the hyperfine shelving states make this material convenient for the burning of narrow persistent spectral holes. Since the hole can be burnt long before the arrival of the input signal, there is no need for a strong-coupling field, illuminating the sample simultaneously with the input signal, in contrast with procedures such as electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent population oscillations. Analyzing the slowing down process, we point out the role played by the off-resonant atom. Most of the incoming information is carried over to off-resonant atoms, while the pulse is confined within the sample. The observed speed-of-light reduction factor exceeds ${10}^{5}$.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.79.063844

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We report on light slowing down in a rare-earth-metal-ion-doped crystal by persistent spectral hole burning. The absence of motion of the active ions, the large inhomogeneous broadening, the small homogeneous width, and the long lifetime of the hyperfine shelving states make this material convenient for the burning of narrow persistent spectral holes. Since the hole can be burnt long before the arrival of the input signal, there is no need for a strong-coupling field, illuminating the sample simultaneously with the input signal, in contrast with procedures such as electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent population oscillations. Analyzing the slowing down process, we point out the role played by the off-resonant atom. Most of the incoming information is carried over to off-resonant atoms, while the pulse is confined within the sample. The observed speed-of-light reduction factor exceeds 105{10}^{5}105.
We report on light slowing down in a rare earth ion doped crystal by persistent spectral hole burning. The absence of motion of the active ions, the large inhomogeneous broadening, the small homogeneous width and the long lifetime of the hyperfine shelving states make this material convenient for the burning of narrow persistent spectral holes. Since the hole can be burnt long before the arrival of the input signal, there is no need for a strong coupling field, illuminating the sample simultaneously with the input signal, in contrast with procedures such as Electromagnetically Induced Transparency or Coherent Population Oscillations. Analyzing the slowing down process, we point out the role played by off resonance atoms where most of the incoming information is carried over while the pulse is confined within the sample.
We propose a protocol for storage and retrieval of photon wave packets in a $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$-type atomic medium. This protocol derives from spectral hole burning and takes advantages of the specific properties of solid-state systems at low temperature, such as rare-earth ion-doped crystals. The signal pulse is tuned to the center of the hole that has been burnt previously within the inhomogeneously broadened absorption band. The group velocity is strongly reduced, being proportional to the hole width. This way the optically carried information and energy are carried over to the off-resonance optical dipoles. Storage and retrieval are performed by conversion to and from ground-state Raman coherence by using brief $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulses. The protocol exhibits some resemblance with the well-known electromagnetically induced transparency process. It also presents distinctive features such as the absence of coupling beam. In this paper we detail the various steps of the protocol, summarize the critical parameters, and theoretically examine the recovery efficiency.
We present observations of self induced ultraslow light in a persistent spectral hole-burning rare-earth doped crystal. The observed group delay (velocity) is as long as 40 micros (75 m/s), which is comparable to that obtained using electromagnetically induced transparency or coherent population oscillations. We analyze the observed ultraslow light as a function of frequency detuning, light intensity, and atom population (oscillator strength). The present observation of ultraslow light in a persistent spectral hole-burning medium gives potentials to all-optical information processing such as on-demand all-optical buffer memories.
The creation of well-understood structures using spectral hole burning is an important task in the use of technologies based on rare-earth ion-doped crystals. We apply a series of different techniques to model and improve the frequency dependent population change in the atomic level structure of thulium yttrium gallium garnet (Tm:YGG). In particular we demonstrate that, at zero applied magnetic field, numerical solutions to frequency-dependent three-level rate equations show good agreement with spectral hole-burning results. This allows us to predict spectral structures given a specific hole-burning sequence, the underpinning spectroscopic material properties, and the relevant laser parameters. This enables us to largely eliminate power-dependent hole broadening through the use of adiabatic hole-burning pulses. Although this system of rate equations shows good agreement at zero field, the addition of a magnetic field results in unexpected spectral diffusion proportional to the induced Tm ion magnetic-dipole moment and average magnetic-field strength, which, through the quadratic Zeeman effect, dominates the optical spectrum over long timescales. Our results allow optimization of the preparation process for spectral structures in a large variety of rare-earth ion-doped materials for quantum memories and other applications.
We show that coherent population oscillations effect allows us to burn a narrow spectral hole (26 Hz) within the homogeneous absorption line of the optical transition of an erbium ion-doped crystal. The large dispersion of the index of refraction associated with this hole permits us to achieve a group velocity as low as 2.7 m/s with a transmission of 40%. We especially benefit from the inhomogeneous absorption broadening of the ions to tune both the transmission coefficient, from 40% to 90%, and the light group velocity from 2.7 m/s to 100 m/s.
Persistent spectral hole-burning is extensively studied in many materials. In inorganic materials doped with rare earth ions, we have mainly two mechanisms for hole-burning; one is optical pumping to hyperfine sublevels in rare earth ions, and the other is optically induced rearrangement of local structure around optical centers. In crystals we often observe the hole due to the former mechanism while the hole due to the latter is reported mainly in glasses. Up to now, there seems to be only little study about the correlation between the mechanism of hole-burning and sample-quality or defects. Recently we reported that the character of holes in Y2O3:Pr3+ depends on the quality of samples [1]. In this paper we study the origin of these holes in Y2O3 with a well-controlled manner. For this purpose, we applied hole-burning spectroscopy to various Y2O3:Pr3+(0.2mol%) samples doped with other metallic ions.