Spectral Diffusion Mitigation with a Laser Pulse Sequence

TL;DR

This paper reports the first experimental demonstration of spectral diffusion mitigation in a quantum emitter using a laser pulse sequence, achieving linewidth reduction and spectral concentration.

Contribution

It experimentally validates a protocol for spectral diffusion mitigation via a periodic laser pulse sequence on solid-state quantum emitters.

Findings

Reduced inhomogeneous linewidth close to the lifetime limit.

Concentrated absorption at a chosen frequency.

Demonstrated applicability to various quantum emitters.

Abstract

The optical spectrum of a quantum system is jointly determined by the properties of the emitter and the driving field. All-optical spectral control can hence be a promising method to engineer the properties of single photon emitters for quantum technological applications. It was proposed that driving a two-level system with a periodic sequence of optical pi-pulses during the excited state lifetime shifts the emission and absorption maximum to an arbitrarily detuned pulse carrier frequency, enabling the mitigation of spectral diffusion in noisy emitters. In this article, we report on the first experimental observation of this effect. We implement the protocol on a solid-state emitter and reduce its inhomogeneously broadened optical linewidth close to the lifetime limit. By detuning the excitation laser, we are able to concentrate approximately half of the absorption to a freely selectable target frequency. Our approach is solely based on properties of coherently evolving quantum systems, rendering it applicable to a wide range of individual and ensembles of quantum emitters.