Mechanical tunability of an ultranarrow spectral feature via uniaxial stress

N. Galland, N. Lucic, B. Fang, S. Zhang, R. Letargat, A. Ferrier, P. Goldner, S. Seidelin and Y. Le Coq

Phys. Rev. App. 13, 044022 – Published 8 April 2020

Rare-earth-doped crystals have numerous applications ranging from frequency metrology to quantum information processing. To fully benefit from their exceptional coherence properties, the effect of mechanical strain on the energy levels of the dopants—whether it is a resource or perturbation—needs to be considered. In this article, we measure the strain coupling constants, which can also be used for an optomechanical coupling.