Characteristics of spectral-hole burning in Tm3+:YAG based on the perturbation theory

In this paper, the physical mechanism of the interaction between electromagnetic wave and spectral-hole burning crystal material is investigated in detail. In the small signal regime, a perturbation theory model is used to analyze the mechanism of spectral-hole burning. By solving the Liouville equation, three-order perturbation results are obtained. From the theoretic analysis, spectral-hole burning can be interpreted as a photon echo of the zero-order diffraction echo when the first optical pulse and the second optical pulse are overlapped in time. According to the model, the spectral-hole width is dependent on the chirp rate of the reading laser. When the chirp rate is slow with respect to the spectral features of interest,the spectral hole is closely mapped into time domain. For a fast chirp rate, distortions are observed. The results follow Maxwell–Bloch model and they are also in good agreement with the experimental results.

Characteristics of spectral-hole burning in Tm~(3+):YAG based on the perturbation theory