Electromagnetically induced transparency in an isotopically purified Nd3+:YLiF4 crystal

Abstract

We report the first observation of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in an isotopically purified Nd 3+ :YLiF4 crystal. This crystal demonstrates inhomogeneous broadening of optical transitions of about 35 MHz. EIT is observed in a symmetrical Λ-like system formed by two hyperfine sublevels of the ground state corresponding to a zero first order Zeeman (ZEFOZ) transition and a hyperfine sublevel of the excited state, which is not coupled to other ground-state sublevels. It is found that transmission of the probe field as a function of the two-photon detuning demonstrates a comb-like structure that can be attributed to superhyperfine coupling between Nd 3+ ions and fluorine nuclei. The observed structure can be resolved only in the vicinity of the ZEFOZ point where the homogeneous linewidth of the spin transition is sufficiently small. The results pave the way for implementing solid-state quantum memories based on off-resonant Raman interaction without spectral tailoring of optical transitions.

Electromagnetically induced transparency in inhomogeneously broadened solid media

“…Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a classic example of such a process with applications including slow and stopped light [2,3], atomic-based field sensing [4,5], lasing without inversion [6,7], and optical quantum memory [8,9]. Most studies of EIT and other coherent processes in atomic ensembles have been conducted in gaseous media over a range of temperatures from ultracold quantum gases to heated vapor cells [1,10], while a relatively smaller effort has been made in solid-state media [2,3,11,12]. In fact, it was originally thought EIT would be impossible in solids [13].…”

Electromagnetically Induced Transparency in a mono-isotopic $^{167}$Er:$^7$LiYF$_4$ crystal below 1 Kelvin

“…EIT has been extensively studied in the crystals doped with praseodymium ions [19][20][21][22][23][24][25][26][27], but much less in those doped with Kramers RE ions such as erbium * E-mail: nadezhda.kukharchyk@physik.uni-saarland. de and neodymium [28,29]. In the present work, we report the first observation of EIT in a mono-isotopic 167 Er 3+ : 7 LiYF 4 (Er:LYF) crystal.…”

“…The optical/spin coherence properties of LYF system were studied in 1990s [38,39]. Today, LYF crystals are again in the focus of spectroscopic research, but now within the context of QM applications [29,[40][41][42][43]. It turns out that Er:LYF system is a quite challenging material, because it requires high magnetic field B > ∼ 1.5 T at low temperature T ∼ 1.5 K for establishing optical coherence time at ∼ 10 µs timescale [38,39,41].…”

Low-Loss High-Fidelity Frequency-Mode Hadamard Gates Based on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

“…The result of high fidelity also indicates that the single-photon quantum state is well preserved in the dual-Λ EIT scheme. The EIT mechanism is universal and can work for various media [34][35][36][37][38]. Hence, the high-fidelity and low loss FBS reported here can be readily applied to systems of the optical depth and decoherence rate similar to those in this work.…”