We demonstrate transient saturation spectroscopy for 167Er3+ ions doped in a silicate glass fiber cooled at 2.5–30 K to measure the population relaxation time t1 of the hyperfine sublevels. The observed t1 value is 3.1 ms at 4 K and we observe anomalous temperature dependence whereby t1 becomes rather longer with heating from 4 to 30 K. We can regard the population relaxation as a result of the Raman scattering of the Boson peak mode (BPM) peculiar to a silicate glass by the 4f-electrons of the 167Er3+ ions. We can attribute the anomalous temperature dependence to the suppression of the Raman scattering by thermal hopping of the localized BPM.
Abstract We produced optical waveguides in the 167 Er 3 + : 7 LiYF 4 crystal with diameters ranging from 30 to 100 μ m by using the depressed-cladding approach with femtosecond laser. Stationary and coherent spectroscopy was performed on the 809 nm optical transitions between the hyperfine sublevels of 4 I 15/2 and 4 I 9/2 multiplets of 167 Er 3+ ions both inside and outside of waveguides. It was found that the spectra of 167 Er 3+ were slightly broadened and shifted inside the waveguides compared to the bulk crystal spectra. We managed to observe a two-pulse photon echo on this transition and determined phase relaxation times for each waveguide. The experimental results show that the created crystal waveguides doped by rare-earth ions can be used in optical quantum memory and integrated quantum schemes.
This thesis investigates the potential of Er:YSO and Er:Si for quantum communication and computation applications. Erbium uniquely possess optical transitions in the 1.5 um region, making it suitable for both fibre telecommunication and silicon photonics. The properties of the
I15/2↔I13/2 optical transition in Er:YSO have already been extensively studied. Over two decades ago, improvements in
Er3+ dephasing time at 1.5 um were achieved by applying a 5T field along the D1 axis. More recently, a record 4.4 ms coherence time on the same optical transition was achieved using a 7T field. These investigations, among others, illustrate that large Er electron spins become thermally polarised with sufficient magnetic field. However, no long lived and coherent spin transitions associated with the Er ions had previously been identified, and such transitions are necessary for on-demand quantum state storage. To address this requirement, the optical and hyperfine transition properties of 167-Er:YSO were investigated in large magnetic fields. In a field of 7T, spectral hole lifetimes of 1 minute and hyperfine population lifetimes of 12 minutes were observed. These measurements illustrate the effect of spin-lattice relaxation in this system, and how it can be mitigated. Efficient spin-polarisation of the entire 167-Er hyperfine ensemble is also demonstrated. This is the first such demonstration in rare earth systems, and a key requirement for broadband optical storage. Moreover, a 1.3 second coherence time was recorded for an 167-Er:YSO hyperfine transition at 7T and 1.4 K. This is an improvement of several orders-of-magnitude over previous coherence measurements on spin-transitions in Er doped solids. This is also sufficient for maximal entanglement rates in quantum repeater networks that span distances of 1000 km or greater. With an optical transition at 1.5 um, Er is also an ideal candidate to connect silicon based quantum computers to the future quantum Internet. In particular, single Er:Si ions could be used to develop an optical-spin bus between P:Si qubits and fibre based quantum networks. Presented here is the first spectroscopic investigation of single Er:Si ions. This required a novel opto-electronic approach to single ion detection, where the Er ions are implanted into a nanometre scale fin-shaped Field Effect Transistor. With this approach it was possible to develop high resolution optical spectra, where both the electronic and hyperfine levels of individual Er ions were resolved. Long optical and spin coherence times are also important requirements for an optical-spin bus. To address the first requirement, an investigation of the optical lineshape was undertaken. Here it was determined that sources of Stark noise external to the transistor channel contribute a significant amount to optical homogeneous linewidth. However, the dominant noise contribution was determined to be short-range (from within the 30 nm wide channel) and the total homogeneous linewidth was measured to be 50 MHz. The site structure of an individual Er:Si ion was then analysed, using magnetic field rotation patterns and optical transitions between multiple crystal field levels. This site was determined to have approximately axial (
C3) symmetry. The purpose of this study was to determine a magnetic field regime in which the Er electrons spin can be polarised, which is necessary for realising of long hyperfine lifetimes and coherence times.