Light Qubit Storage and Retrieval using Macroscopic Atomic Ensembles
J. Sherson, A. S. Soerensen, J. Fiurasek, K. Moelmer, E. Polzik
备注：
4 pages, 3 figures For his new version, the original paper has substantially rewritten to make it clearer including completely new introduction and conclusions and a rearrangement of the middle part. A minor mistake in the numerical results has been found and corrected, which resulted in higher values for the fidelities
We present an experimentally feasible protocol for the complete
storage and retrieval of arbitrary light states in an atomic quantum
memory using the well-established Faraday interaction between light
and matter. Our protocol relies on multiple passages of a single
light pulse through the atomic ensemble without the impractical
requirement of kilometer long delay lines between the passages.
Furthermore, we introduce a time dependent interaction strength
which enables storage and retrieval of states with arbitrary pulse
shapes. The fidelity approaches unity exponentially without squeezed
or entangled initial states, as illustrated by explicit calculations
for a photonic qubit.
We investigate robustness of probabilistic storage and retrieval device optimized for phase gates to noise. We use noisy input composed of convex combination of unitary channel with either depolarizing or dephasing channel. We find out that the resistance to dephasing noise is higher than to depolarization. Interestingly, for the depolarisation the retrieval reduces the degree of noise. We also examine the possible realizations showing that their performance is different when the noise is present.
We report slowed propagation and storage and retrieval of thermal light in warm rubidium vapor using the effect of electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). We first demonstrate slowed-propagation of the probe thermal light beam through an EIT medium by measuring the second-order correlation function of the light field using the Hanbury-Brown$-$Twiss interferometer. We also report an experimental study on the effect of the EIT slow-light medium on the temporal coherence of thermal light. Finally, we demonstrate the storage and retrieval of thermal light beam in the EIT medium. The direct…
We report an experimental demonstration of optimal storage and retrieval of heralded single-photon wave packets using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in cold atoms at a high optical depth. We obtain an optimal storage efficiency of (49+/-3)% for single-photon waveforms with a temporal likeness of 96%. Our result brings the EIT quantum light-matter interface close to practical quantum information applications.
We address the question of a quantum memory storage of quantum dynamics. In particular, we design an optimal protocol for $N\to 1$ probabilistic storage-and-retrieval of unitary channels on $d$-dimensional quantum systems. If we may access the unknown unitary gate only $N$-times, the optimal success probability of perfect retrieval of its single use is $N/(N-1+d^2)$. The derived size of the memory system exponentially improves the known upper bound on the size of the program register needed for probabilistic programmable quantum processors. Our results are closely related to probabilistic perf…
We demonstrate experimentally a procedure to obtain the maximum efficiency for the storage and retrieval of light pulses in atomic media. The procedure uses time reversal to obtain optimal input signal pulse-shapes. Experimental results in warm Rb vapor are in good agreement with theoretical predictions and demonstrate a substantial improvement of efficiency. This optimization procedure is applicable to a wide range of systems.
Storage and retrieval of a squeezed vacuum was successfully demonstrated using electromagnetically induced transparency. 930ns of the squeezed vacuum pulse was incident on the laser cooled 87Rb atoms with an intense control light in a coherent state. When the squeezed vacuum pulse was slowed and spatially compressed in the cold atoms, the control light was switched off. After 3us of storage, the control light was switched on again and the squeezed vacuum was retrieved, as was confirmed using the time-domain homodyne method.
We report the storage and retrieval of single photons, via a quantum memory, in the optical phonons of room-temperature bulk diamond. The THz-bandwidth heralded photons are generated by spontaneous parametric downconversion and mapped to phonons via a Raman transition, stored for a variable delay, and released on demand. The second-order correlation of the memory output is $g^{(2)}(0) = 0.65 \pm 0.07$, demonstrating preservation of non-classical photon statistics throughout storage and retrieval. The memory is low-noise, high-speed and broadly tunable; it therefore promises to be a versatile l…
Quantum storage of light in a collective ensemble of atoms plays an important role in quantum information processing. Consisting of a quantum repeater together with quantum entanglement swapping, quantum memory has been intensively studied recently. Conventional photon echoes have been limited by extremely low retrieval efficiency and short storage time confined by the optical phase decay process. Here, we report a storage time-extended near perfect photon echo protocol using a phase locking method via an auxiliary spin state, where the phase locking acts as a conditional stopper of the rephas…
Storage and retrieval of parametric down-conversion (PDC) photons are demonstrated with electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Extreme frequency filtering is performed for THz order of broadband PDC light and the frequency bandwidth of the light is reduced to MHz order. Storage and retrieval procedures are carried out for the frequency filtered PDC photons. Since the filtered bandwidth [full width at half-maximum (FWHM) = 9 MHz] is within the EIT window (FWHM = 12.6 MHz), the flux of the PDC light is successfully stored and retrieved. The nonclassicality of the retrieved light is conf…
A quantum memory that can store quantum states faithfully and retrieve them on demand has wide applications in quantum information science. An efficient quantum memory in the microwave regime working alongside quantum processors based on superconducting quantum circuits may serve as an important architecture for quantum computers. Here we realize on-demand storage and retrieval of weak coherent microwave photon pulses at the single-photon level. We implement a superconducting multi-resonator quantum memory which is composed of a set of frequency-tunable coplanar transmission line (CPW) resonat…
We experimentally demonstrate optimal storage and retrieval of light pulses of arbitrary shape in atomic ensembles. By shaping auxiliary control pulses, we attain efficiencies approaching the fundamental limit and achieve precise retrieval into any predetermined temporal profile. Our techniques, demonstrated in warm Rb vapor, are applicable to a wide range of systems and protocols. As an example, we present their potential application to the creation of optical time-bin qubits and to controlled partial retrieval.
We present a proposal for storing and retrieving a continuous-variable quadripartite polarization-entangled cluster state, using macroscopic atomic ensembles in a magnetic field. The Larmor precession of the atomic spins leads to a symmetry between the atomic canonical operators. In this scheme, each of the four spatially separated pulses passes twice through the respective ensemble in order to map the polarization-entangled cluster state onto the long-lived atomic ensembles. The stored state can then be retrieved by another four read-out pulses, each crossing the respective ensemble twice. By…
We report the storage of microwave pulses at the single-photon level in a spin-ensemble memory consisting of $10^{10}$ NV centers in a diamond crystal coupled to a superconducting LC resonator. The energy of the signal, retrieved $100\, μ\mathrm{s}$ later by spin-echo techniques, reaches $0.3\%$ of the energy absorbed by the spins, and this storage efficiency is quantitatively accounted for by simulations. This figure of merit is sufficient to envision first implementations of a quantum memory for superconducting qubits.
Quantum coherence control is presented for wavelength convertible quantum memory in a double-lambda-type solid ensemble whose spin states are inhomogeneously broadened. Unlike typical atomic media whose spin decay is homogeneous, a spin inhomogeneously broadened solid ensemble requires a counter-intuitive access in the quantum coherence control to avoid spontaneous emission-caused quantum noises. Such quantum coherence control in a solid ensemble results in a near perfect retrieval efficiency and is applicable to ultralong photon storage up to the spin phase relaxation time. Here, the basic ph…
We propose a quantum memory protocol based on dynamically changing the resonance frequency of an ensemble of two-level atoms. By sweeping the atomic frequency in an adiabatic fashion, photons are reversibly transferred into atomic coherences. We present a polaritonic description for this type of storage, which shares some similarities with Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) based quantum memories. On the other hand the proposed memory is also linked to the Gradient Echo Memory (GEM) due to the effective spatial gradient that pulses experience in the medium. We discuss a possible im…
We investigate whether it is possible to store and retrieve the intense probe pulse from a $Λ$-type homogeneous medium of cold atoms. Through numerical simulations we show that it is possible to store and retrieve the probe pulse which are not necessarily weak. As the intensity of the probe pulse increases, the retrieved pulse remains a replica of the original pulse, however there is overall broadening and loss of the intensity. These effects can be understood in terms of the dependence of absorption on the intensity of the probe. We include the dynamics of the control field, which becomes esp…
A hybrid interface of solid state single-photon sources and atomic quantum memories is a long sought-after goal in photonic quantum technologies. Here we demonstrate deterministic storage and retrieval of photons from a semiconductor quantum dot in an atomic ensemble quantum memory at telecommunications wavelengths. We store single photons from an InAs quantum dot in a high-bandwidth rubidium vapour based quantum memory, with a total internal memory efficiency of $(12.9 \pm 0.4) \%$. The signal-to-noise ratio of the retrieved photons is $18.2\pm 0.6$, limited only by detector dark counts. This…
Probabilistic storage and retrieval (PSR) of unitary quantum dynamics is possible with exponentially small failure probability with respect to the number of systems used as a quantum memory [PRL 122, 170502 (2019)]. Here we study improvements due to a priori knowledge about the unitary transformation to be stored. In particular, we study $N \rightarrow 1$ PSR of qubit phase gates, i.e. qubit rotations a round $Z$ axis with an unknown angle, and show that if we access the gate only $N$-times, the optimal probability of perfect retrieving of its single use is $N/(N+1)$. We propose a quantum circ…
Stopping and regenerating a pair of single-photon pulses at adjacent locations in coherently prepared Rydberg atomic ensembles are significantly affected by their effective interaction mediated by Rydberg excitations, and the similar processes can differ notably from the one exhibiting the common Rydberg blockade as with the stationary propagation of multi-photon light beams in the same medium. Based on the complete dynamics, we reveal the detailed features in such processes by finding how the profiles of the involved quantum fields evolve in various situations. The findings help to determine …
Large-scale quantum networks will employ telecommunication-wavelength photons to exchange quantum information between remote measurement, storage, and processing nodes via fibre-optic channels. Quantum memories compatible with telecommunication-wavelength photons are a key element towards building such a quantum network. Here, we demonstrate the storage and retrieval of heralded 1532 nm-wavelength photons using a solid-state waveguide quantum memory. The heralded photons are derived from a photon-pair source that is based on parametric down-conversion, and our quantum memory is based on a 6 GH…
We report the storage and retrieval of a small microwave field from a superconducting resonator into collective excitations of a spin ensemble. The spins are nitrogen-vacancy centers in a diamond crystal. The storage time of the order of 30 ns is limited by inhomogeneous broadening of the spin ensemble.
An elementary quantum network operation involves storing a qubit state in an atomic quantum memory node, and then retrieving and transporting the information through a single photon excitation to a remote quantum memory node for further storage or analysis. Implementations of quantum network operations are thus conditioned on the ability to realize such matter-to-light and/or light-to-matter quantum state mappings. Here, we report generation, transmission, storage and retrieval of single quanta using two remote atomic ensembles. A single photon is generated from a cold atomic ensemble at Site …
We propose a novel scheme to realize electrically controlled quantum memories in the opto- and electro-mechanical (OEM) cavity. Combining this OEM cavity with the mechanism of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) we find that the quantum interference, arising from the two optical transitions of the $Λ$ type three-level atomic ensembles, can be manipulated electrically. Numerical calculations show that the probe photon state can be well stored into the atomic spin state by sending an electric current pulse and retrieved with time-reverse symmetry by sending the other current pulse wit…
In the present paper we consider a quantum memory scheme for light diffusely propagating through a spatially disordered atomic gas. The diffuse trapping of the signal light pulse can be naturally integrated with the mechanism of stimulated Raman conversion into a long-lived spin coherence. Then the quantum state of the light can be mapped onto the disordered atomic spin subsystem and can be stored in it for a relatively long time. The proposed memory scheme can be applicable for storage of the macroscopic analog of the $Ψ^{(-)}$ Bell state and the prepared entangled atomic state performs its q…
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In superconducting quantum information, machined aluminum superconducting cavities have proven to be a well-controlled, low-dissipation electromagnetic environment for quantum circuits such as qubits. They can possess large internal quality factors, $Q_{int}>10^8$, and present the possibility of storing quantum information for times far exceeding those of microfabricated circuits. However, in order to be useful as a storage element, these cavities require a fast "read/write" mechanism--- in other words, they require tunable coupling between other systems of interest such as other cavity modes …
This work examines the problem of learning an unknown von Neumann measurement of dimension $d$ from a finite number of copies. To obtain a faithful approximation of the given measurement we are allowed to use it $N$ times. Our main goal is to estimate the asymptotic behavior of the maximum value of the average fidelity function $F_d$ for a general $N \rightarrow 1$ learning scheme. We show that $F_d = 1 - Θ\left(\frac{1}{N^2}\right)$ for arbitrary but fixed dimension $d$. In addition to that, we compared various learning schemes for $d=2$. We observed that the learning scheme based on determin…
We investigate the storage and retrieval of electromagnetic waves using a nonlinear metamaterial, analogous to the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) observed in atomic systems. We experimentally demonstrate the storage of the electromagnetic wave by reducing an auxiliary "control" wave; the stored wave is then released by recovering the control wave. We also confirm that the metamaterial can store and reproduce the phase distribution of the original input wave. These effects confirm a remarkable analogy between the metamaterial and an atomic EIT medium.
We analyze the storage and retrieval of intense-broadband pulses with the added effects of Doppler broadening and detuning in a $Λ$ configuration. We compute analytical solutions via the inverse scattering technique and show how the signal field is transferred to a spin-wave in the atomic medium and later retrieved by the interaction of a control pulse. Due to the intensity of the pulses, the pulse area (as defined for self-induced transparency) plays a key role in the interaction, as it determines the location of the spin wave within the medium. Additionally, we compare our results to non-ide…
In this article the ability to record, store, and read out the quantum properties of light is studied. The discussion is based on high-speed and adiabatic models of quantum memory in lambda-configuration and in the limit of strong resonance. We show that in this case the equality between efficiency and squeezing ratio, predicted by the simple beamsplitter model, is broken. The requirement of the maximum squeezing in the output pulse should not be accompanied by the requirement of maximum efficiency of memory, as in the beamsplitter model. We have demonstrated a high output pulse squeezing, whe…
We present a universal physical picture for describing storage and retrieval of photon wave packets in a Lambda-type atomic medium. This physical picture encompasses a variety of different approaches to pulse storage ranging from adiabatic reduction of the photon group velocity and pulse-propagation control via off-resonant Raman fields to photon-echo based techniques. Furthermore, we derive an optimal control strategy for storage and retrieval of a photon wave packet of any given shape. All these approaches, when optimized, yield identical maximum efficiencies, which only depend on the optica…
We propose to entangle macroscopic atomic ensembles in cavity using EPR-correlated beams. We show how the field entanglement can be almost perfectly mapped onto the long-lived atomic spins associated with the ground states of the ensembles, and how it can be retrieved in the fields exiting the cavities after a variable storage time. Such a continuous variable quantum memory is of interest for manipulating entanglement in quantum networks.
We report on the quantum storage and retrieval of photonic polarization quantum bits onto and out of a solid state storage device. The qubits are implemented with weak coherent states at the single photon level, and are stored for 500 ns in a praseodymium doped crystal with a storage and retrieval efficiency of 10%, using the atomic frequency comb scheme. We characterize the storage by using quantum state tomography, and find that the average conditional fidelity of the retrieved qubits exceeds 95% for a mean photon number mu=0.4. This is significantly higher than a classical benchmark, taking…
In a recent paper [Gorshkov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 123601 (2007)], we used a universal physical picture to optimize and demonstrate equivalence between a wide range of techniques for storage and retrieval of photon wave packets in Lambda-type atomic media in free space, including the adiabatic reduction of the photon group velocity, pulse-propagation control via off-resonant Raman techniques, and photon-echo-based techniques. In the present paper, we perform the same analysis for the cavity model. In particular, we show that the retrieval efficiency is equal to C/(1+C) independent of the…
The full structuration of light in the transverse plane, including intensity, phase and polarization, holds the promise of unprecedented capabilities for applications in classical optics as well as in quantum optics and information sciences. Harnessing special topologies can lead to enhanced focusing, data multiplexing or advanced sensing and metrology. Here we experimentally demonstrate the storage of such spatio-polarization-patterned beams into an optical memory. A set of vectorial vortex modes is generated via liquid crystal cell with topological charge in the optic axis distribution, and …
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A quantum memory at microwave frequencies, able to store the state of multiple superconducting qubits for long times, is a key element for quantum information processing. Electronic and nuclear spins are natural candidates for the storage medium as their coherence time can be well above one second. Benefiting from these long coherence times requires to apply the refocusing techniques used in magnetic resonance, a major challenge in the context of hybrid quantum circuits. Here we report the first implementation of such a scheme, using ensembles of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centres in diamond couple…
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As computers approach the physical limits of information storable in memory, new methods will be needed to further improve information storage and retrieval. We propose a quantum inspired vector based approach, which offers a contextually dependent mapping from the subsymbolic to the symbolic representations of information. If implemented computationally, this approach would provide exceptionally high density of information storage, without the traditionally required physical increase in storage capacity. The approach is inspired by the structure of human memory and incorporates elements of Ga…
In a recent paper [Gorshkov et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 123601 (2007)], we presented a universal physical picture for describing a wide range of techniques for storage and retrieval of photon wave packets in Lambda-type atomic media in free space, including the adiabatic reduction of the photon group velocity, pulse-propagation control via off-resonant Raman techniques, and photon-echo based techniques. This universal picture produced an optimal control strategy for photon storage and retrieval applicable to all approaches and yielded identical maximum efficiencies for all of them. In the pre…
Using on-demand coherence conversion via optical locking in conventional stimulated (three-pulse) photon echoes, ultralong, ultraefficient photon storage has been observed in a rare-earth Pr3+ doped Y2SiO5, where storage time is several orders of magnitude longer and retrieval efficiency is enhanced by fifty times. Compared with the same method applied to two-pulse photon echoes for a rephasing halt, use of spectral grating in the stimulated photon echoes offers a phase-independent coherence conversion between optical and spin states. Eventually an ultralong spin population decay-dependent pho…
Epitaxially grown quantum dots (QDs) are promising sources of non-classical states of light such as single photons and entangled photons. However, in order for them to be used as a resource for long-distance quantum communication, distributed quantum computation, or linear optics quantum computing, these photons must be coupled efficiently to long-lived quantum memories as part of a quantum repeater network. Here, we theoretically examine the prospects for efficient storage and retrieval of a QD-generated single photon with a 1 ns lifetime in a multi-level atomic system. We calculate using an …
We present certain universal bounds on the capacity of quantum information storage and on the time scale of its retrieval for a generic quantum field theoretic system. The capacity, quantified by the microstate entropy, is bounded from above by the surface area of the object measured in units of a Goldstone decay constant. The Goldstone bosons are universally present due to the spontaneous breaking of Poincare and internal symmetries by the information-storing object. Applied to a black hole, the bound reproduces the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy. However, the relation goes beyond gravity. The mi…
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We have built a hybrid system composed of a superconducting flux qubit (the processor) and an ensemble of nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond (the memory) that can be directly coupled to one another and demonstrated how information can be transferred from the flux qubit to the memory, stored and subsequently retrieved. We have established the coherence properties of the memory, and succeeded in creating an entangled state between the processor and memory, demonstrating how the entangled state's coherence is preserved. Our results are a significant step towards using an electron spin ensemble a…
We apply collective Raman scattering to create, store and retrieve spatially multimode light in warm rubidium-87 vapors. The light is created in a spontaneous Stokes scattering process. This is accompanied by the creation of counterpart collective excitations in the atomic ensemble -- the spin waves. After a certain storage time we coherently convert the spin waves into the light in deterministic anti-Stokes scattering. The whole process can be regarded as a delayed four-wave mixing which produces pairs of correlated, delayed random images. Storage of higher order spatial modes up to microseco…
The Gradient Echo Memory (GEM) scheme has potential to be a suitable protocol for storage and retrieval of optical quantum information. In this paper, we review the properties of the $Λ$-GEM method that stores information in the ground states of three-level atomic ensembles via Raman coupling. The scheme is versatile in that it can store and re-sequence multiple pulses of light. To date, this scheme has been implemented using warm rubidium gas cells. There are different phenomena that can influence the performance of these atomic systems. We investigate the impact of atomic motion and four-wav…
