Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Log inSign up
Challenges
Datasets
Workspaces
Papers
Discussions
Leaderboard
Blog
Job Board
Q3AS

© 2026 Aqora Quantum S.A.S.

TermsPrivacyLegal Notice

Spectral Hole-Burning and Related Spectroscopies: Science and Applications

Hole-Burning Mechanisms and Crystal-Field Effects in Rare-Earth Doped Glasses

Thomas Schmidt, P. J. van der Zaag, B. C. Schokker, Silvia Volker

Published Jan 1, 1992• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Rare-earth ions doped in glasses or crystals have extremely narrow homogeneous optical linewidths at low temperature and are, therefore, excellent probes for studying small spectral splittings [1]. They are further potential candidates for data storage applications.
DOI
10.1364/shbl.1992.tua3

Related papers

High-resolution nonlinear laser spectroscopy and its applications using rare-earth-doped crystals

Masaharu Mitsunaga, Urs P. Wild, Stefan B. Altner +2 more

Due to their ultralong dephasing times, rare-earth-ion-doped crystals can be a powerful tool for investigating small interactions undergoing in the crystal. Furthermore, narrow spectral holes along with persistent lifetimes make them an ideal candidate of high-density optical data storage. We present some recent topics in this area.

Spectral Hole-Burning and Related Spectroscopies: Science and Applications•Jan 1, 1994•0 citations

Investigations of spectral dynamics in rare earth ion doped crystals using high resolution laser techniques

Graf, Felix R.

Solids containing rare earth (RE) ions have attracted spectroscopists' attention since the beginning of this century.In the last 30 years, their extremely narrow spectral features in combination with the use of non linear spectroscopy have served to sensitively measure ion-solid interactions and to progressively observe narrower homogeneous linewidths.The potential for using RE ion doped crystals as optical storage materials and processors has lately been a driving force in their investigations, Here, the ratio of inhomogeneous to homogeneous linewidth is regarded as an adequate measure of storage density and can become as big as 10 7 at cryogenic temperatures.Therefore, the analysis of line broadening is of fundamental as well as applied interest.This work is concerned with the investigation of interactions of RE ions with their environment.By means of a laser with a kilohertz resolution and non-linear spectroscopy, spectral dynamics as a function of intrinsic, external electric field, or light-pulse induced perturbations are analyzed on different time scales.In the first part, the theoretical background for the spectroscopy of RE ion doped crystals is outlined.The energy levels are presented and it is shown that due to their electronic properties RE ions have spectrally narrow electronic transitions, sometimes in the sub-kHz regime.The investigations of these narrow spectral features on the seconds to minutes time scale require very stable tunable laser sources.At present, such devices are not commercially available.In the second part, the performance of ahorne built laser system is characterized using persistent spectral holes, The results show that frequency selective materials can be used as powerful tools for the high resolution Vlll Abstract spectral analysis of laser sources.Complementary to that, they give a measure for the long term evolution of the spectral holes for the particular hole burning substance.In the third part, the effect of an external electric field on RE ion doped crystals is investigated.It is shown that for these systems the electric field induced frequency shifts are fully reversible.A general theory of Stark splittings of RE doped crystals is introduced and two methods are presented which allow for the determination of the magnitude and orientation of the electric dipole moment differences with sub-degree accuracy.Finally in the last part, spectral line broadening mechanisms of RE ion doped crystals are discussed and investigated by means of two-pulse photon echoes.Through variation of the experimental parameters, a discrimination between the different contributions is partly achieved and characteristic properties for different dephasing mechanisms are presented.In combination with the measurements from the third part, quantitative predictions of the electric dipole-dipole induced broadening are carried out, which are compared to the experimental results,

•Jan 1, 1998•5 citations

Exceptionally narrow homogeneous linewidth in erbium-doped glasses

Y. Sun, R. L. Cone, Laurent Bigot +1 more

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.

Optics Letters•Nov 9, 2006•22 citations

Laser Hole Burning Spectroscopy: A High Resolution Probe of Molecular Environments.

R. M. Macfarlane, Robert M. Shelby

Laser induced hole burning in optical absorption bands of low temperature solids has been investigated with emphasis on mechanisms for population hole burning, the interactions with the environment which limit the hole widths and the use of hole burning for ultra high resolution spectroscopy. Hole burning was observed in a wide range of solids including organic and organometallic molecules in crystals and rare earth ions in crystals and glasses. The mechanisms for hole burning also varied widely and a new mechanism involving optically induced nuclear spin flips of near neighbor nuclei was discovered. Examples of hole burning in new classes of materials are presented here for the first time, namely inorganic glasses (silicate glasses containing Nd(3+), Pr(3+) or Eu(3+)) and undoped stoichiometric compounds (e.g., EuP5O14). Hole recovery was used to determine nuclear spin lattice relaxation rates in praseodymium doped crystals. For allowed optical transitions (e.g., singlet states of zinc porphyrin, dibromoindigo and color centers in alkali halides) the hole widths at 2K are limited by population decay to approximately 50 MHz. For longer lived optical levels in crystalline materials, e.g., those containing rare earth ions, the hole widths are narrower (less than 10 MHz) and are limited by dynamical interactions with surrounding nuclei. In amorphous materials such as europium doped silicate glass, hole widths are much broader, being limited by low frequency tunneling motions. Hole burning measurements were complemented by time domain coherent transient (photon echo, and optical free decay) measurements of homogeneous linewidths which enabled us to measure optical resonances as narrow as 760 Hz in Eu(3+):Y2O3.

Final Report•Jun 1, 1981•0 citations

The role of divalent ions in persistent hole-burning mechanism in Y2O3:Pr3+ crystals

Tsuyoshi Okuno, Kōichiro Tanaka, Tohru Suemoto

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.

Spectral Hole-Burning and Related Spectroscopies: Science and Applications•Jan 1, 1994•0 citations

Quantum Information, Laser Frequency Stabilization, and Optical Signal Processing with Rare-Earth Doped Materials

R. L. Cone, Charles W. Thiel, Yongchen Sun +2 more

Rare earth ions in solids offer optical linewidths rivaling those of trapped single atoms. We design and characterize rare-earth-doped crystals for applications requiring long optical decoherence times (4.2 ms) and ultranarrow spectral holes (75 Hz).

Frontiers in Optics•Jan 1, 2013•2 citations
Solids containing rare earth (RE) ions have attracted spectroscopists' attention since the beginning of this century.In the last 30 years, their extremely narrow spectral features in combination with the use of non linear spectroscopy have served to sensitively measure ion-solid interactions and to progressively observe narrower homogeneous linewidths.The potential for using RE ion doped crystals as optical storage materials and processors has lately been a driving force in their investigations, Here, the ratio of inhomogeneous to homogeneous linewidth is regarded as an adequate measure of storage density and can become as big as 10 7 at cryogenic temperatures.Therefore, the analysis of line broadening is of fundamental as well as applied interest.This work is concerned with the investigation of interactions of RE ions with their environment.By means of a laser with a kilohertz resolution and non-linear spectroscopy, spectral dynamics as a function of intrinsic, external electric field, or light-pulse induced perturbations are analyzed on different time scales.In the first part, the theoretical background for the spectroscopy of RE ion doped crystals is outlined.The energy levels are presented and it is shown that due to their electronic properties RE ions have spectrally narrow electronic transitions, sometimes in the sub-kHz regime.The investigations of these narrow spectral features on the seconds to minutes time scale require very stable tunable laser sources.At present, such devices are not commercially available.In the second part, the performance of ahorne built laser system is characterized using persistent spectral holes, The results show that frequency selective materials can be used as powerful tools for the high resolution Vlll Abstract spectral analysis of laser sources.Complementary to that, they give a measure for the long term evolution of the spectral holes for the particular hole burning substance.In the third part, the effect of an external electric field on RE ion doped crystals is investigated.It is shown that for these systems the electric field induced frequency shifts are fully reversible.A general theory of Stark splittings of RE doped crystals is introduced and two methods are presented which allow for the determination of the magnitude and orientation of the electric dipole moment differences with sub-degree accuracy.Finally in the last part, spectral line broadening mechanisms of RE ion doped crystals are discussed and investigated by means of two-pulse photon echoes.Through variation of the experimental parameters, a discrimination between the different contributions is partly achieved and characteristic properties for different dephasing mechanisms are presented.In combination with the measurements from the third part, quantitative predictions of the electric dipole-dipole induced broadening are carried out, which are compared to the experimental results,
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.
Laser induced hole burning in optical absorption bands of low temperature solids has been investigated with emphasis on mechanisms for population hole burning, the interactions with the environment which limit the hole widths and the use of hole burning for ultra high resolution spectroscopy. Hole burning was observed in a wide range of solids including organic and organometallic molecules in crystals and rare earth ions in crystals and glasses. The mechanisms for hole burning also varied widely and a new mechanism involving optically induced nuclear spin flips of near neighbor nuclei was discovered. Examples of hole burning in new classes of materials are presented here for the first time, namely inorganic glasses (silicate glasses containing Nd(3+), Pr(3+) or Eu(3+)) and undoped stoichiometric compounds (e.g., EuP5O14). Hole recovery was used to determine nuclear spin lattice relaxation rates in praseodymium doped crystals. For allowed optical transitions (e.g., singlet states of zinc porphyrin, dibromoindigo and color centers in alkali halides) the hole widths at 2K are limited by population decay to approximately 50 MHz. For longer lived optical levels in crystalline materials, e.g., those containing rare earth ions, the hole widths are narrower (less than 10 MHz) and are limited by dynamical interactions with surrounding nuclei. In amorphous materials such as europium doped silicate glass, hole widths are much broader, being limited by low frequency tunneling motions. Hole burning measurements were complemented by time domain coherent transient (photon echo, and optical free decay) measurements of homogeneous linewidths which enabled us to measure optical resonances as narrow as 760 Hz in Eu(3+):Y2O3.
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.