Measurement of the phonon decoherence in diamond using spectral interference of stokes emission

Abstract

A great variety of solid state materials are currently researched with respect to their feasibility for coherent manipulation, as it is useful, for example, for quantum information processing (QIP). One crucial parameter is the decoherence time for a certain material excitation. We present a method in which interference fringes in the spectrum of broad light sources are used to characterise the decay of coherence. Spectral interference is achieved by the superposition of two coherent ultrafast light sources which are temporally separated by a delay $\tau$, leading to a spectral interference pattern with fringe spacing $\Delta {\nu}=\tau^{-1}$. The spectral fringe pattern ther..