Various spectroscopic properties
of Yb3+-doped Y2SiO5 crystal have
been extensively investigated
due to its promising application in quantum information processing.
However, the local structure, electronic structure of Yb3+:Y2SiO5 crystal, and its optical and magnetic
properties have not been comprehensively studied from a theoretical
viewpoint. In this work, the geometric and electronic structures of
Yb3+ that replaces two crystallographic Y3+ sites
in the Y2SiO5 crystal are first obtained by
the method of density functional theory (DFT). Then, the optical,
electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR), and optically detected magnetic
resonance (ODMR) spectra for 171Yb3+ (nuclear
spin I = 1/2) at such two sites are simultaneously
calculated in the framework of the complete diagonalization (of energy)
matrix (CDM) based on the optimized local structure around 171Yb3+ ion by DFT. The various calculated spectroscopic
properties by such combined theoretical approach are consistent with
the experimental ones, which demonstrates that CDM is effective and
particularly suitable for calculating hyperfine
A
-tensors under zero, low, and intermediate magnetic field.
More importantly, based on the obtained accurate hyperfine structure
of 171Yb3+ in Y2SiO5 crystal,
the possible “clock transitions”, which can enhance
the optical coherence time, can be assigned or predicted by the present
approach. This study successfully explains the spectroscopic properties
of 171Yb3+-doped Y2SiO5 and provides a feasible method to design and search for practical
rare-earth-doped quantum information materials for the community.