POWER-GATED SPECTRAL HOLEBURNING IN MGS-EU2- A CASE FOR HIGH-DENSITY PERSISTENT SPECTRAL HOLEBURNING(, EU3+ )

We present the case of photoionization-induced holeburning in rare-ear th-doped II-VI compounds for high-density persistent holeburning. In t his case, the photoproduct of holeburning is distributed across the en tire zero-phonon line. This maximizes the total number of possible spe ctral holes that can be burned into an inhomogeneous line as well as p roduces holes that are photoerasable. Experimental data on photon-gate d holeburning in MES:Eu2+, Eu3+ are presented. With the proper choice of the host electronic band structure, the optically active rare-earth ion and its electronic transitions involved in the holeburning proces s, to the best of our knowledge we have observed the highest number of photon-gated holes ever burned in a single electronic transition. The features of these holes are that they suffer no detectable erasure af ter several thousands of read cycles, they survive thermal cycling to similar to 150 K, and they are completely photoerasable. A special cas e of photon-gated holeburning, power-gated holeburning, was employed t o demonstrate that, in such systems, a single laser can be used for bu rning, reading, and erasing of the spectral holes. (C) 1998 American I nstitute of Physics.