- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine

Physical Review A

Reuse & Permissions

It is not necessary to obtain permission to reuse this article or its components as it is available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. This license permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI are maintained. Please note that some figures may have been included with permission from other third parties. It is your responsibility to obtain the proper permission from the rights holder directly for these figures.

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Open Access

Subwavelength spatial confinement of optical excitation by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage variants in a doped solid

Niels Joseph*, Thomas Riederer, and Thomas Halfmann†

PDF

Phys. Rev. A 114, 013126 – Published 28 July, 2026

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/snsq-59mw

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate subwavelength spatial confinement of optical excitation using variants of stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP) in a Pr3+:Y2SiO5 crystal. Building on conventional STIRAP, we implement two more advanced schemes, double STIRAP and tripod STIRAP, which enable enhanced spatial control. At the cost of reduced coherence, double STIRAP provides an almost twofold improvement in resolution compared with conventional STIRAP, which already enables localization nearly two orders of magnitude below the pump beam waist. To resolve such fine structures near the diffraction limit, we employ an autocorrelation-based measurement technique. With this setup, we demonstrate excitation confinement by conventional STIRAP down to 260±40nm, thus achieving subwavelength localization. As another powerful variant of adiabatic passage, we apply tripod STIRAP using an additional donut-shaped control beam that suppresses population transfer outside the beam center via coherent population trapping. With tripod STIRAP, we generate excitations as narrow as 350±40nm, a factor of 28 below the width of the driving control beam. We demonstrate the scalability of the method by preparing tightly packed grids with up to 41 excitation spots without crosstalk, making the method well-suited for quantum architectures. Our results establish STIRAP variants as robust, versatile tools for coherent, spatially selective optical excitation on a subwavelength scale, opening broad applications in quantum technologies and classical optics.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (33)

  1. S. W. Hell and J. Wichmann, Breaking the diffraction resolution limit by stimulated emission: Stimulated-emission-depletion fluorescence microscopy, Opt. Lett. 19, 780 (1994).
  2. H. Blom and J. Widengren, Stimulated emission depletion microscopy, Chem. Rev. 117, 7377 (2017).
  3. A. Gopal, A. Kazarine, J. Dubach, and P. Wiseman, Recent advances in nonlinear microscopy: Deep insights and polarized revelations, Int. J. Biochem. Cell Biol. 130, 105896 (2021).
  4. A. V. Gorshkov, L. Jiang, M. Greiner, P. Zoller, and M. D. Lukin, Coherent quantum optical control with subwavelength resolution, Phys. Rev. Lett. 100, 093005 (2008).
  5. D. Viscor, J. L. Rubio, G. Birkl, J. Mompart, and V. Ahufinger, Single-site addressing of ultracold atoms beyond the diffraction limit via position-dependent adiabatic passage, Phys. Rev. A 86, 063409 (2012).
  6. J. T. Merrill, S. C. Doret, G. Vittorini, J. P. Addison, and K. R. Brown, Transformed composite sequences for improved qubit addressing, Phys. Rev. A 90, 040301(R) (2014).
  7. C. Weitenberg, M. Endres, J. F. Sherson, M. Cheneau, P. Schauß, T. Fukuhara, I. Bloch, and S. Kuhr, Single-spin addressing in an atomic Mott insulator, Nature (London) 471, 319 (2011).
  8. M. Stabel, N. Joseph, N. V. Vitanov, and T. Halfmann, Spatial confinement of atomic excitation by composite pulses in a doped solid, Phys. Rev. A 110, 023526 (2024).
  9. N. Joseph, N. V. Vitanov, and T. Halfmann, Spatially localized optical excitations in a doped solid using robust broadband composite pulses, Phys. Rev. A 113, 023117 (2026).
  10. K. Heshami, D. G. England, P. C. Humphreys, P. J. Bustard, V. M. Acosta, J. Nunn, and B. J. Sussman, Quantum memories: Emerging applications and recent advances, J. Mod. Opt. 63, 2005 (2016).
  11. S.-Y. Lan, A. G. Radnaev, O. A. Collins, D. N. Matsukevich, T. A. B. Kennedy, and A. Kuzmich, A multiplexed quantum memory, Opt. Express 17, 13639 (2009).
  12. M. Stabel, L. D. Feldmann, and T. Halfmann, Confining atomic populations in space via stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in a doped solid, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 55, 154003 (2022).
  13. R. Kolesov, S. Lasse, C. Rothfuchs, A. D. Wieck, K. Xia, T. Kornher, and J. Wrachtrup, Superresolution microscopy of single rare-earth emitters in YAG and H3 centers in diamond, Phys. Rev. Lett. 120, 033903 (2018).
  14. J. G. Bartholomew and M. J. Sellars, Technique for frequency selective, sub-diffraction limited imaging of rare-earth ions in bulk crystals, J. Lumin. 194, 284 (2018).
  15. T. Zhong and P. Goldner, Emerging rare-earth doped material platforms for quantum nanophotonics, Nanophoton. 8, 2003 (2018).
  16. K. Bergmann, A. A. Rangelov, B. W. Shore, and N. V. Vitanov, Roadmap on STIRAP applications, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 52, 202001 (2019).
  17. K. Bergmann, H. Theuer, and B. W. Shore, Coherent population transfer among quantum states of atoms and molecules, Rev. Mod. Phys. 70, 1003 (1998).
  18. H. Li, V. A. Sautenkov, M. M. Kash, A. V. Sokolov, G. R. Welch, Y. V. Rostovtsev, M. S. Zubairy, and M. O. Scully, Optical imaging beyond the diffraction limit via dark states, Phys. Rev. A 78, 013803 (2008).
  19. J. Mompart, V. Ahufinger, and G. Birkl, Coherent patterning of matter waves with subwavelength localization, Phys. Rev. A 79, 053638 (2009).
  20. N. V. Vitanov, A. A. Rangelov, B. W. Shore, and K. Bergmann, Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in physics, chemistry, and beyond, Rev. Mod. Phys. 89, 015006 (2017).
  21. M. Stabel, Spatial confinement of atomic excitation in a doped solid, Ph.D. thesis, Technical University of Darmstadt, 2024.
  22. J. A. Miles, D. Das, Z. J. Simmons, and D. D. Yavuz, Localization of atomic excitation beyond the diffraction limit using electromagnetically induced transparency, Phys. Rev. A 92, 033838 (2015).
  23. H. Theuer, R. Unanyan, C. Habscheid, K. Klein, and K. Bergmann, Novel laser controlled variable matter wave beamsplitter, Opt. Express 4, 77 (1999).
  24. A. Kinos, L. Rippe, S. Kröll, and A. Walther, Designing gate operations for single-ion quantum computing in rare-earth-ion-doped crystals, Phys. Rev. A 104, 052624 (2021).
  25. D. Gustavsson, M. Lindén, K. Shortiss, S. Kröll, A. Walther, A. Kinos, and L. Rippe, Using slow light to enable laser frequency stabilization to a short, high-Q cavity, Opt. Express 33, 2866 (2025).
  26. N. Joseph, Subwavelength spatial confinement of optical excitation in a doped solid, Ph.D. thesis, Technical University of Darmstadt, 2026.
  27. M. Fleischhauer, A. Imamoglu, and J. P. Marangos, Electromagnetically induced transparency: Optics in coherent media, Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 633 (2005).
  28. J. A. Miles, Z. J. Simmons, and D. D. Yavuz, Subwavelength localization of atomic excitation using electromagnetically induced transparency, Phys. Rev. X 3, 031014 (2013).
  29. R. C. Gonzalez and R. E. Woods, Digital Image Processing, 3rd ed. (Pearson Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, 2007).
  30. M. Nilsson, L. Rippe, S. Kröll, R. Klieber, and D. Suter, Hole-burning techniques for isolation and study of individual hyperfine transitions in inhomogeneously broadened solids demonstrated in Pr3+:Y2SiO5, Phys. Rev. B 70, 214116 (2004).
  31. F. Beil, J. Klein, G. Nikoghosyan, and T. Halfmann, Electromagnetically induced transparency and retrieval of light pulses in a Λ-type and a V-type level scheme in Pr3+:Y2SiO5, J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 41, 074001 (2008).
  32. G. H. Zhang, B. Braverman, A. Kawasaki, and V. Vuletić, Note: Fast compact laser shutter using a direct current motor and three-dimensional printing, Rev. Sci. Instrum. 86, 126105 (2015).
  33. B. Lauritzen, N. Timoney, N. Gisin, M. Afzelius, H. de Riedmatten, Y. Sun, R. M. Macfarlane, and R. L. Cone, Spectroscopic investigations of Eu3+:Y2SiO5 for quantum memory applications, Phys. Rev. B 85, 115111 (2012).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. A 114, 013126– Published 28 July, 2026
  • Received 4 February 2026
  • Accepted 7 July 2026
Crossmark - Check for updates button
Creative Commons Logo

Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI.

Published by the American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation