发表机构
University of Notre Dame; National High Magnetic Field Laboratory; Florida State University; Argonne National Laboratory（圣母大学; 国家强磁场实验室; 佛罗里达州立大学; 阿贡国家实验室）
机构由 AI 辅助整理，请以论文原文为准。AI 中文总结
本研究在6K下将铒原子隔离于固态氖和氩中，观测到电信波段内壳层跃迁，其中1437nm跃迁寿命达78.9ms，证明稀有气体固体是长寿命量子发射的理想宿主。
AI 中文摘要
稀土（RE）原子，如铒（Er），在近红外区域具有内壳层光学跃迁，其中部分位于电信波段。由于充满的外壳层有效屏蔽，这些跃迁在很大程度上不受宿主环境影响。低温稀有气体（RG）固体，如固态氖（Ne）和氩（Ar），兼具高化学纯度与近乎无核自旋的环境，使其成为保持光学和自旋相干性的有吸引力的固体宿主。在本工作中，我们在6 K温度下将中性Er原子隔离在固态Ne和Ar中，并通过稳态和时间分辨光致发光（PL）光谱表征其发射。在两种宿主中，我们观察到1000–1500 nm之间的多个近红外跃迁，包括电信O波段和E波段的内壳层发射。位于1299 nm附近的$4f \ ightarrow 5d$跃迁形成由窄组分构成的多重态，与晶体场分裂一致，并在微秒时间尺度上衰减。位于1437 nm附近的$4f \ ightarrow 4f$跃迁在两种宿主中均表现出低于1 cm$^{-1}$的基质位移。在固态Ne中，其非均匀线宽受光谱仪分辨率限制，小于22 GHz，其PL寿命可达78.9 ms，接近估算的辐射极限。热退火延长了Ne中1437 nm寿命，并抑制了Ar中相对于零声子线的声子边带。这些结果将RG固体确定为长寿命电信波段Er发射的有前景宿主，并为未来的自旋-光子接口和混合量子架构奠定了基础。
英文摘要
Rare-earth (RE) atoms, such as erbium (Er), have inner-shell optical transitions in the near-infrared, some of which are in the telecom bands. These transitions are largely insensitive to the host environment due to effective shielding by the filled outer shells. Cryogenic rare-gas (RG) solids, such as solid neon (Ne) and argon (Ar), combine high chemical purity with a nearly nuclear-spin-free environment, making them attractive solid hosts for preserving optical and spin coherence. In this work, we isolate neutral Er atoms in solid Ne and Ar at 6 K and characterize their emission by steady-state and time-resolved photoluminescence (PL) spectroscopy. In both hosts, we observe several near-infrared transitions between 1000--1500 nm, including inner-shell emission in the telecom O and E bands. The $4f \rightarrow 5d$ transition near 1299 nm forms a multiplet of narrow components, consistent with crystal-field splitting, and decays on a microsecond timescale. The $4f \rightarrow 4f$ transition near 1437 nm shows a matrix shift below 1 cm$^{-1}$ in both hosts. In solid Ne, its inhomogeneous linewidth is bounded by the spectrometer resolution to < 22 GHz, and its PL lifetime reaches up to 78.9 ms, close to the estimated radiative limit. Thermal annealing extends the 1437 nm lifetime in Ne and suppresses the phonon sidebands relative to the zero-phonon lines in Ar. These results identify RG solids as promising hosts for long-lived telecom-band Er emission and provide a foundation for future spin-photon interfaces and hybrid quantum architectures.
Comments12 pages, 6 figures
