Stuttgart 2012 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 41: Quanteninformation: Atome und Ionen 1
Q 41.3: Talk
Thursday, March 15, 2012, 11:15–11:30, V7.02
Towards the detection of single rare-earth ions in a solid state crystal — •Tobias Utikal1, Lutz Petersen2, Stephan Götzinger2, and Vahid Sandoghdar1 — 1Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany — 2Laboratory of Physical Chemistry, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
Single rare-earth ions embedded in a solid-state matrix are promising building blocks in future quantum information processing schemes. Importantly, they provide long coherence times in the microsecond to millisecond regime and different optically addressable energy levels. In this work we investigate the optical properties of single trivalent praseodymium ions doped in an yttrium orthosilicate crystal which are excited by a frequency doubled Ti:Sapphire laser. The experiments are carried out at cryogenic temperatures (T = 4K) in order to eliminate phononic interactions with the host. Since the optical transitions take place within the 4f shell, which is shielded from the surrounding by the 5s and 5p orbitals, linewidths as narrow as a few kilohertz can be achieved. This, however, necessitates frequency stabilization of the excitation laser source to the kilohertz regime and appropriate detectors for low photon numbers. From optical ensemble measurements we derive important quantities such as the absorption cross-section and the saturation intensity. We present our progress towards the detection and spectroscopy of single ions.