Discovery of iron group impurity ion spin states in single crystal Y2SiO5 with strong coupling to whispering gallery photons

Interaction of Whispering Gallery Modes (WGMs) with dilute spin ensembles in solids is an interesting paradigm of Hybrid Quantum Systems potentially beneficial for Quantum Signal Processing applications. Unexpected ion transitions are measured in single crystal Y2SiO5 using WGM spectroscopy with large Zero Field Splittings at 14.7 GHz, 18.4GHz, and 25.4GHz, which also feature considerable anisotropy of the g-tensors as well as two inequivalent lattice sites, indicating spins from Iron Group Ion (IGI) impurities. The comparison of undoped and Rare-Earth doped crystals reveal that the IGIs are introduced during co-doping of Eu3+ or Er3+ with concentration at much lower levels of order 100 ppb. The strong coupling regime between an ensemble of IGI spins and WGM photons have been demonstrated at 18.4 GHz and near zero field. This approach together with useful optical properties of these ions opens avenues for spins-in-solids Quantum Electrodynamics. (C) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC.