Maximum coherence in optical transitions in rare earth ion-activated solids

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案资助的（法律111-5）。以激光形式出现的相干电磁辐射对未来的信息技术有着巨大的希望，但前提是能够找到或开发出能够捕获并有效保持相干性的合适材料。我们的想法是研究光场与量子系统之间的强耦合，在激发态的纯辐射衰减的极限下实现。该项目将进行实验，研究一类特殊晶体材料中相干性的形成和消散，这种晶体材料含有共振吸收的稀土离子，具有几乎辐射限制的退相干特性，目标是找到一种固体材料，在系统失去其相干或纠缠状态之前，允许大量操作（而不是目前可行的少数操作）。如果成功，这些系统将为未来的量子超级计算机和防窃听数据通信系统提供关键组件。这项工作的更广泛影响将包括培训这些领域的学生以及与当地技术产业的合作。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Coherent electromagnetic radiation in the form of laser light holds enormous promise for future information technology but only if suitable materials capable of capturing and efficiently maintaining the coherence can be found or developed.Our idea is to investigate strong coupling between the optical field and the quantum system that may be achieved in the limit of purely radiative decay of the excited states. This project will perform experiments to study the formation and dissipation of the coherence in a special class of crystalline materials containing resonantly absorbing rare earth ions having promising nearly radiative-limited decoherence properties.The goal is to find a solid material that would allow a large number of operations (instead of currently feasible few operations) before the system loses track of its coherent or entanglement state. If successful, such systems will provide the key components of future quantum super-computers as well as eavesdropping-proof data communication systems.Broader impacts of the work will include the training of students in these fields and collaborations with local technological industry.