Microwave to optical photon conversion via fully concentrated rare-earth ion crystals

  1. Jonathan. R. Everts,
  2. Matthew. C. Berrington,
  3. Rose. L. Ahlefeldt,
  4. and Jevon J. Longdell
Most investigations of rare earth ions in solids for quantum information have used rare earth ion doped crystals. Here we analyse the conversion of quantum information from microwave
photons to optical frequencies using crystals where the rare earth ions, rather than being dopants, are part of the host crystal. The potential of large ion densities and small linewidths makes such systems very attractive in this application. We show that, as well as high efficiency, large bandwidth conversion is possible. In fact, the collective coupling between the rare earth ions and the optical and microwave cavities is large enough that the limitation on the bandwidth of the devices will instead be the spacing between magnon mode modes in the crystal.

Cavity enhanced Raman heterodyne spectroscopy in Er:YSO for microwave to optical signal conversion

  1. Xavier Fernandez-Gonzalvo,
  2. Sebastian P. Horvath,
  3. Yu-Hui Chen,
  4. and Jevon J. Longdell
The efficiency of the frequency conversion process at the heart of Raman heterodyne spectroscopy was improved by nearly four orders of magnitude by resonant enhancement of both the
pump and signal optical fields. Our results using an erbium doped Y2SiO5 crystal at temperatures near 4K suggest that such an approach is promising for the quantum conversion of microwave to optical photons.