Tunable multi-photon Rabi oscillations in an electronic spin system

Abstract: We report on multi-photon Rabi oscillations and controlled tuning of a multi-level system at room temperature (S=5/2 for Mn2+:MgO) in and out of a quasi-harmonic level configuration. The anisotropy is much smaller than the Zeeman splittings, such as the six level scheme shows only a small deviation from an equidistant diagram. This allows us to tune the spin dynamics by either compensating the cubic anisotropy with a precise static field orientation, or by microwave field intensity. Using the rotating frame approximation, the experiments are very well explained by both an analytical model and a generalized numerical model. The calculated multi-photon Rabi frequencies are in excellent agreement with the experimental data.