Investigation of static electric dipole–dipole coupling induced optical inhomogeneous broadening in Eu3+:Y2SiO5

The concentration dependence of the inhomogeneous broadening and satellite line structure of the 7F0 ⇌ 5D0 transitions in Eu3+:Y2SiO5 is investigated. The concentration-dependent broadening is attributed to an electric dipole–dipole interaction. It is established that the observed satellite lines are due to Eu3+ pair sites and that the magnitude of their frequency detunings from the main line is consistent with an electric dipole–dipole coupling. Implications for selecting ensembles for rare earth quantum computing demonstrations are considered.