1 Introduction ................................................. 1
1.1 Outline ................................................. 3
I GENERAL BACKGROUND ........................................... 5
2 the rare earths .............................................. 7
2.1 Hamiltonian ............................................. 8
2.2 Specific Properties .................................... 11
3 basic experiments ........................................... 13
3.1 Hole Burning ........................................... 13
3.2 Photon and Spin Echo ................................... 15
3.3 Raman Heterodyne Scattering ............................ 16
II EXPERIMENTAL APPARATUS ..................................... 21
4 optical excitation .......................................... 23
4.1 Laser Stabilisation System ............................. 24
4.1.1 Intensity Stabilisation ......................... 24
4.1.2 Frequency Stabilisation ......................... 24
4.2 Optical Pulse Generation ............................... 30
4.2.1 AOM Calibration System .......................... 32
5 Radio frequency system ...................................... 35
5.1 RF Excitation and Demodulation ......................... 35
5.1.1 Resonance Circuits .............................. 37
6 Cryogenic setup and static magnetic field ................... 41
6.1 Cryostat and Sample Mount .............................. 41
6.2 Magnet Systems ......................................... 41
III RARE EARTH INVESTIGATIONS ................................. 45
7 Spin hamiltonian characterisation ........................... 47
7.1 Introduction of the Method ............................. 47
7.1.1 Generation of the Spectra ....................... 47
7.1.2 Variation of External Control Parameters ........ 48
7.2 Spin Hamiltonian Model ................................. 49
7.2.1 Symmetries ...................................... 51
7.2.2 Conventions ..................................... 52
7.3 Numerical Fitting ...................................... 53
7.3.1 Spectral Line Identification .................... 53
7.3.2 Line Mapping .................................... 54
7.3.3 Simulated Annealing and the Fitting Algorithm ... 54
7.3.4 Fit Error Estimation ............................ 59
7.4 Application to Specific Compounds and Results .......... 62
7.4.1 PrLaWO .......................................... 62
7.4.2 PrYAP ........................................... 70
7.4.3 PrYSO ........................................... 78
7.4.4 Hyperfine Line Widths ........................... 82
8 optical to spin storage decoupling techniques ............... 87
8.1 Photon Echo Based Quantum Memories ..................... 87
8.1.1 Spin Wave Storage ............................... 90
8.2 Zero First Order Zeeman Transitions .................... 91
8.2.1 Identification of ZEFOZ Transitions ............. 92
8.2.2 Experimental Verification with PrLaWO ........... 93
8.3 Dynamic Decoupling .................................... 102
8.3.1 Decoupling Sequence Performance using Raman
Heterodyne Scattering .......................... 103
8.3.2 Quantum Memory Testbed ......................... 112
9 Summary .................................................... 127
Bibliography .................................................. 131
Acknowledgments ............................................... 143
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