Cavity-assisted atomic frequency comb memory in an isotopically pure 143Nd3+ :YLiF4 crystal

In this work we present an implementation of cavity-assisted atomic frequency comb (AFC) memory protocol in an isotopically pure 143Nd3+ :YLiF4 crystal. We use a tunable confocal Fabry–Perot cavity that is placed inside the cryostat. For a 1 mm thick sample with optical depth of 0.2 we obtain total storage efficiency of 3%, which is a 15-fold enhancement compared to the no cavity case. The memory bandwidth is limited by the inhomogeneous broadening of the optical transition and allows us to store short 30 ns pulses.