We produced optical waveguides in the 167 Er 3+ : 7 LiYF 4 crystal with diameters ranging from 30 to 100 μm by using the depressed-cladding approach with femtosecond laser. Stationary and coherent spectroscopy was performed on the 809 nm optical transitions between the hyperfine sublevels of 4 I 15/2 and 4 I 9/2 multiplets of 167 Er 3+ ions both inside and outside of waveguides. It was found that the spectra of 167 Er 3+ were slightly broadened and shifted inside the waveguides compared to the bulk crystal spectra. We managed to observe a two-pulse photon echo on this transition and determined phase relaxation times for each waveguide. The experimental results show that the created crystal waveguides doped by rare-earth ions can be used in optical quantum memory and integrated quantum schemes.
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