Optical dephasing mechanisms in Tm3+:Y2Si2O7

Optical dephasing measurements are reported for Tm3+:Y2Si2O7 as a function of temperature and laser excitation intensity. By use of photon echoes, a coherence time of T-2 = 23 mu s was measured at 1.24 K for the H-3(6)(1) --> H-3(4)(1) transition at 790.427 nm, corresponding to a homogeneous linewidth of 14 kHz. The relatively broad inhomogeneous linewidth of 100 GHz gives an inhomogeneous-to-homogeneous linewidth ratio of Gamma(inh)/Gamma(h) = 7 X 10(6). This large ratio, a transition wavelength suitable for GaAlAs semiconductor lasers, and the absence of hyperfine structure hole burning make this material a good candidate for time-domain signal processing and transient optically addressed data storage. (C) 1996 Optical Society of America