Quadratic Zeeman Spectral Diffusion of Thulium Ion Population in a Yttrium Gallium Garnet Crystal

Abstract

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 predicting 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. Though 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 time scales. 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.

References in corpus (7)

• A long-lived solid-state optical quantum memory for high-rate quantum repeaters
• Tm${}^{3+}$:Y${}_3$Ga${}_5$O${}_{12}$ materials for spectrally multiplexed quantum memories
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• Interlaced spin grating for optical wave filtering
• Measurement of the Thulium Ion Spin Hamiltonian Within a Yttrium Gallium Garnet Host Crystal

Cited by in corpus (1)

• QED effects in quadratic Zeeman splitting in highly charged hydrogen-like ions