Article Reference Spectroscopic investigations of Eu 3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 for quantum memory applications LAURITZEN, Bjorn, et al. Abstract Rare-earth-ion-doped solids are promising materials as light-matter interfaces for quantum applications. Europium doped into an yttrium orthosilicate crystal in particular has interesting coherence properties and a suitable ground-state energy-level structure for a quantum memory for light. In this paper we report on spectroscopic investigations of this material from the perspective of implementing an atomic frequency comb (AFC)-type quantum memory with spin-wave storage. For this goal we determine the order of the hyperfine levels in the 7 F0 ground state and 5 D0 excited state, and we measure the relative strengths of the optical transitions between these levels. We also apply spectral hole burning techniques in order to prepare the system as a well-defined Λ system, as required for further quantum memory experiments. Furthermore, we measure the optical Rabi frequency on one of the strongest hyperfine transitions, a crucial experimental parameter for the AFC protocol. From this we also obtain a value for the transition dipole moment which is consistent with that obtained from absorption measurements. LAURITZEN, Bjorn, et al. Spectroscopic investigations of Eu 3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 for quantum memory applications. Physical Review. B, Condensed Matter, 2012, vol. 85, no. 11, p. 115111-1/10 DOI : 10.1103/PhysRevB.85.115111 Available at: http://archive-ouverte.unige.ch/unige:22769 Disclaimer: layout of this document may differ from the published version. 1 / 1