posted on 2019-12-02, 18:39authored byChristopher
M. Phenicie, Paul Stevenson, Sacha Welinski, Brendon C. Rose, Abraham T. Asfaw, Robert J. Cava, Stephen A. Lyon, Nathalie P. de Leon, Jeff D. Thompson
Atomic and atomlike defects in the solid state are widely
explored
for quantum computers, networks, and sensors. Rare earth ions are
an attractive class of atomic defects that feature narrow spin and
optical transitions that are isolated from the host crystal, allowing
incorporation into a wide range of materials. However, the realization
of long electronic spin coherence times is hampered by magnetic noise
from abundant nuclear spins in the most widely studied host crystals.
Here, we demonstrate that Er3+ ions can be introduced via
ion implantation into TiO2, a host crystal that has not
been studied extensively for rare earth ions and has a low natural
abundance of nuclear spins. We observe efficient incorporation of
the implanted Er3+ into the Ti4+ site (>50%
yield) and measure narrow inhomogeneous spin and optical line widths
(20 and 460 MHz, respectively) that are comparable to bulk-doped crystalline
hosts for Er3+. This work demonstrates that ion implantation
is a viable path to studying rare earth ions in new hosts and is a
significant step toward realizing individually addressed rare earth
ions with long spin coherence times for quantum technologies.