Controlling the interfacial reactions and environment of rare-earth ions in thin oxide films towards wafer-scalable quantum technologies

Authors:

Open Access

18 October 2021

journal article
research article
Published by Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) in Materials Advances

Vol. 3 (1) , 300-311
DOI:10.1039/d1ma00753j

Abstract

Rare earth (RE) doped oxides have demonstrated great potential for photonic applications and have also appeared as promising candidates for quantum memory devices and microwave to optical transducers. Here, we investigate the potential of Chemical Vapor Deposited (CVD) europium-doped Y₂O₃ thin films on silicon as a new platform for integrated quantum devices. We aim at improving the optical properties of such thin films by carefully controlling the RE ion's environment. In particular, we study the effect of annealing post treatments and demonstrate that a significant source of broadening of the optical transition arises from interfacial reactions with the silicon substrate. We thus propose to encapsulate RE ions between undoped high-quality thick layers in order to limit the impact of interfacial reactions on their properties during thermal annealing. Using this approach, we succeeded in measuring a narrow inhomogeneous linewidth of 18 GHz and an ultra-narrow homogeneous linewidth of 5 MHz inferred from spectral hole width. These results are promising towards the use of these engineered RE doped thin films for the development of a scalable nanostructured spin-photon interface. In addition, our strategy could be applied to a large variety of oxide films for a broad range of applications.

Keywords

Funding Information

Agence Nationale de la Recherche (11-EQP-020)
Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (820391)

This publication has 52 references indexed in Scilit:

Effects of magnetic field orientation on optical decoherence in ${Er}^{3 +} : Y_{2} {SiO}_{5}$
Physical Review B, 2009
Magnetic $g$ tensors for the ${}^{4}I_{15 ∕ 2}$ and ${}^{4}I_{13 ∕ 2}$ states of ${Er}^{3 +} : Y_{2} Si O_{5}$
Physical Review B, 2008
Modeling the crystal-field splitting of the energy levels ofEr3+in charge-compensated sites in lithium niobate
Physical Review B, 2004
Homogeneous and inhomogeneous linewidths of ${Eu}^{3 +}$ in disordered crystalline systems
Physical Review B, 1995
Temperature dependence of the homogeneous width of ${Eu}^{3 +}$ spectral lines in silicate glass measured by accumulated photon echoes
Physical Review B, 1994
Time-resolved ultranarrow optical hole burning of a crystalline solid: Y_2O_3:Eu^3+
Journal of the Optical Society of America B, 1994
Ultraslow optical dephasing in ${Eu}^{3 +}$ : $Y_{2}$ ${SiO}_{5}$
Physical Review Letters, 1994
Sample-dependent optical dephasing in bulk crystalline samples of $Y_{2}$ $O_{3}$ : ${Eu}^{3 +}$
Physical Review B, 1994
Optical dephasing, hyperfine structure, and hyperfine relaxation associated with the 580.8-nm ${}^{7}F_{0}$ $-^{5}$ $D_{0}$ transition of europium in ${Eu}^{3 +}$ : $Y_{2}$ $O_{3}$
Physical Review B, 1989
The theory of the strain broadened line shapes of spin resonance and optical zero phonon lines
Proceedings of the Physical Society (1958-1967), 1966