UC Berkeley

Er 3 + color centers are promising candidates for quantum science and technology due to their long electron and nuclear spin coherence times, as well as their desirable emission wavelength. By selecting host materials with suitable, controllable properties, we introduce new parameters that can be used to tailor the Er 3 + emission spectrum. PbTiO 3 is a well-studied ferroelectric material with known methods of engineering different domain configurations through epitaxial strain. By distorting the structure of Er 3 + -doped PbTiO 3 thin films, we can manipulate the crystal fields around the Er 3 + dopant. This is resolved through changes in the Er 3 + resonant fluorescence spectra, tying the optical properties of the defect directly to the domain configurations of the ferroelectic matrix. Additionally, we are able to resolve a second set of peaks for films with in-plane ferroelectric polarization. We hypothesize these results to be due to either the Er 3 + substituting different sites of the PbTiO 3 crystal, differences in charges between the Er 3 + dopant and the original substituent ion, or selection rules. Systematically studying the relationship between the Er 3 + emission and the epitaxial strain of the ferroelectric matrix lays the pathway for future optical studies of spin manipulation by altering ferroelectric order parameters.