Dr. Ashley J. Shin, Postdoctoral fellow, Nano-Optics

Leuchs-Russell-Auditorium, A.1.500, Staudtstr. 2

Location details

Abstract:

The energetic disorder induced by fluctuating liquid environments acts in opposition to the precise control required for coherence-based sensing. Overcoming fluctuations requires a protected quantum subspace that only weakly interacts with the local environment. In this work, we report a ytterbium complex that exhibits an ultranarrow absorption linewidth in solution at room temperature with a full width at half maximum of 0.625 meV (150 GHz). Using spectral hole burning, we measured an even narrower linewidth of 410 peV (99 kHz) at 77 K. Narrow linewidths allowed low-field magnetic circular dichroism at room temperature, used to sense Earth-scale magnetic fields. These results demonstrated that ligand protection in lanthanide complexes could substantially diminish electronic state fluctuations. We have termed this system an “atom-like molecular sensor” (ALMS) and proposed approaches to improve its  performance. In this talk, I will focus on the optical experiments and the specifics of linewidth broadening observed.