Raman-excited spin coherences for high-temperature spectral hole-burning memories

Summary form only given.Optical spectral hole-burning has demonstrated the ability to achieve high-capacity, high-speed data storage. Unfortunately, widespread application of this technique has been limited by the requirement for low temperature operation. To circumvent this problem, we have been investigating the possibility of using Raman-excited spin coherences to store and recall optical data. The motivation is that optical Raman excitation allows storage densities and response times characteristic of optical hole-burning memories, but because it is based on long-lived spin coherences, it can maintain these characteristics at much higher operating temperatures. For the initial experiments we chose to use N-V color centers in diamond as the Raman hole-burning material because it is comparatively well studied.