Efficient and long-lived Zeeman-sublevel atomic population storage in an erbium-doped glass fiber

Long-lived population storage in optically pumped levels of rare-earth ions doped into solids, referred to as persistent spectral hole burning, is of significant fundamental and technological interest. However, the demonstration of deep and persistent holes in rare-earth ion doped amorphous hosts, e.g., glasses, has remained an open challenge for many decades---a fact that motivates our work towards a better understanding of the interaction between impurities and vibrational modes in glasses. Here we report the observation and detailed characterization of such holes in an erbium-doped silica glass fiber cooled to below 1 K. We demonstrate population storage in electronic Zeeman sublevels of the erbium ground state with lifetimes up to 30 seconds and 80% spin polarization. In addition to its fundamental aspect, our investigation reveals a potential technological application of rare-earth ion doped amorphous materials, including at telecommunication wavelength.