- Physical Review Journals
All JournalsPhysics Magazine
Access Provided by Xinjiang University

Physical Review Applied

Export citation

Export citation

Choose format for download:

Download Citation
  • Letter
  • Access by Xinjiang University

Single-Photon-Compatible Telecommunications-Band Quantum Memory in a Hot Atomic Gas

S.E. Thomas1, S. Sagona-Stophel1, Z. Schofield2, I.A. Walmsley1, and P.M. Ledingham2,*

  • 1QOLS, Department of Physics, Imperial College London, London SW7 2BW, United Kingdom
  • 2Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, United Kingdom

  • *P.Ledingham@soton.ac.uk
PDF

Phys. Rev. Applied 19, L031005 – Published 16 March, 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevApplied.19.L031005

Abstract

The efficient storage and on-demand retrieval of quantum optical states that are compatible with the telecommunications band is a requirement for future terrestrial-based quantum optical networking. Spectrum in the telecommunications band minimizes optical fiber-propagation losses, and broad optical bandwidth facilitates high-speed networking protocols. Here we report on a telecommunications-wavelength- and bandwidth-compatible quantum memory. Using the Off-Resonant Cascaded Absorption protocol in hot 87Rb vapor, we demonstrate a total internal memory efficiency of 20.90(1)% with a Doppler-limited storage time of 1.10(2) ns. We characterize the memory performance with weak coherent states and measure a signal-to-noise ratio of 1.9(1)×104 for an average input photon number of 0.084.

View figure in article

Physics Subject Headings (PhySH)

Article Text

References (44)

  1. H.-J. Briegel, W. Dür, J. I. Cirac, and P. Zoller, Quantum Repeaters: The Role of Imperfect Local Operations in Quantum Communication, Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, 5932 (1998).
  2. N. Gisin and R. Thew, Quantum communication, Nat. Photon. 1, 165 (2007).
  3. T. D. Ladd, F. Jelezko, R. Laflamme, Y. Nakamura, C. Monroe, and J. L. O’Brien, Quantum computing, Nature 464, 45 (2010).
  4. P. Kómár, E. M. Kessler, M. Bishof, L. Jiang, A. S. Sørensen, J. Ye, and M. D. Lukin, A quantum network of clocks, Nat. Phys. 10, 582 (2014).
  5. S. Wehner, D. Elkouss, and R. Hanson, Quantum internet: A vision for the road ahead, Science 362, 641 (2018).
  6. K. Heshami, D. G. England, P. C. Humphreys, P. J. Bustard, V. M. Acosta, J. Nunn, and B. J. Sussman, Quantum memories: Emerging applications and recent advances, J. Mod. Opt. 63, 2005 (2016).
  7. Y. C. Sun, Rare Earth Materiais in Optical Storage and Data Processing Applications (Springer, Berlin, 2005), p. 379.
  8. B. Lauritzen, J. c. v. Minář, H. de Riedmatten, M. Afzelius, and N. Gisin, Approaches for a quantum memory at telecommunication wavelengths, Phys. Rev. A 83, 012318 (2011).
  9. I. Craiciu, M. Lei, J. Rochman, J. M. Kindem, J. G. Bartholomew, E. Miyazono, T. Zhong, N. Sinclair, and A. Faraon, Nanophotonic Quantum Storage at Telecommunication Wavelength, Phys. Rev. Appl. 12, 024062 (2019).
  10. J. S. Stuart, M. Hedges, R. Ahlefeldt, and M. Sellars, Initialization protocol for efficient quantum memories using resolved hyperfine structure, Phys. Rev. Res. 3, L032054 (2021).
  11. I. Craiciu, M. Lei, J. Rochman, J. G. Bartholomew, and A. Faraon, Multifunctional on-chip storage at telecommunication wavelength for quantum networks, Optica 8, 114 (2021).
  12. D.-C. Liu, P.-Y. Li, T.-X. Zhu, L. Zheng, J.-Y. Huang, Z.-Q. Zhou, C.-F. Li, and G.-C. Guo, On-Demand Storage of Photonic Qubits at Telecom Wavelengths, Phys. Rev. Lett. 129, 210501 (2022).
  13. B. Lauritzen, J. c. v. Minář, H. de Riedmatten, M. Afzelius, N. Sangouard, C. Simon, and N. Gisin, Telecommunication-Wavelength Solid-State Memory at the Single Photon Level, Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 080502 (2010).
  14. J. Dajczgewand, J.-L. L. Gouët, A. Louchet-Chauvet, and T. Chanelière, Large efficiency at telecom wavelength for optical quantum memories, Opt. Lett. 39, 2711 (2014).
  15. J. Jin, E. Saglamyurek, M. l. G. Puigibert, V. Verma, F. Marsili, S. W. Nam, D. Oblak, and W. Tittel, Telecom-Wavelength Atomic Quantum Memory in Optical Fiber for Heralded Polarization Qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 115, 140501 (2015).
  16. S.-H. Wei, B. Jing, X.-Y. Zhang, J.-Y. Liao, H. Li, L.-X. You, Z. Wang, Y. Wang, G.-W. Deng, H.-Z. Song, D. Oblak, G.-C. Guo, and Q. Zhou, Storage of 1650 modes of single photons at telecom wavelength. arXiv:2209.00802 (2022).
  17. M. F. Askarani, M. G. Puigibert, T. Lutz, V. B. Verma, M. D. Shaw, S. W. Nam, N. Sinclair, D. Oblak, and W. Tittel, Storage and Reemission of Heralded Telecommunication-Wavelength Photons Using a Crystal Waveguide, Phys. Rev. Appl. 11, 054056 (2019).
  18. A. G. Radnaev, Y. O. Dudin, R. Zhao, H. H. Jen, S. D. Jenkins, A. Kuzmich, and T. A. B. Kennedy, A quantum memory with telecom-wavelength conversion, Nat. Phys. 6, 894 (2010).
  19. D.-S. Ding, Z.-Y. Zhou, B.-S. Shi, X.-B. Zou, and G.-C. Guo, Storage and retrieval of a light in telecomband in a cold atomic ensemble. arXiv:1210.3963 (2012).
  20. N. Maring, K. Kutluer, J. Cohen, M. Cristiani, M. Mazzera, P. M. Ledingham, and H. de Riedmatten, Storage of up-converted telecom photons in a doped crystal, New J. Phys. 16, 113021 (2014).
  21. X.-Y. Luo, Y. Yu, J.-L. Liu, M.-Y. Zheng, C.-Y. Wang, B. Wang, J. Li, X. Jiang, X.-P. Xie, Q. Zhang, X.-H. Bao, and J.-W. Pan, Entangling metropolitan-distance separated quantum memories, Nature 578, 240 (2020).
  22. Z. Zhu, D. J. Gauthier, and R. W. Boyd, Stored light in an optical fiber via stimulated brillouin scattering, Science 318, 1748 (2007).
  23. M. Merklein, B. Stiller, K. Vu, S. J. Madden, and B. J. Eggleton, A chip-integrated coherent photonic-phononic memory, Nat. Comms. 8, 574 (2017).
  24. A. Wallucks, I. Marinković, B. Hensen, R. Stockill, and S. Gröblacher, A quantum memory at telecom wavelengths, Nat. Phys. 16, 772 (2020).
  25. J. S. Pelc, L. Ma, C. R. Phillips, Q. Zhang, C. Langrock, O. Slattery, X. Tang, and M. M. Fejer, Long-wavelength-pumped upconversion single-photon detector at 1550 nm: Performance and noise analysis, Opt. Express 19, 21445 (2011).
  26. P. K. Shandilya, D. P. Lake, M. J. Mitchell, D. D. Sukachev, and P. E. Barclay, Optomechanical interface between telecom photons and spin quantum memory, Nat. Phys. 17, 1420 (2021).
  27. K. T. Kaczmarek, P. M. Ledingham, B. Brecht, S. E. Thomas, G. S. Thekkadath, O. Lazo-Arjona, J. H. D. Munns, E. Poem, A. Feizpour, D. J. Saunders, J. Nunn, and I. A. Walmsley, High-speed noise-free optical quantum memory, Phys. Rev. A 97, 042316 (2018).
  28. S. E. Thomas, T. M. Hird, J. H. D. Munns, B. Brecht, D. J. Saunders, J. Nunn, I. A. Walmsley, and P. M. Ledingham, Raman quantum memory with built-in suppression of four-wave-mixing noise, Phys. Rev. A 100, 033801 (2019).
  29. R. Finkelstein, E. Poem, O. Michel, O. Lahad, and O. Firstenberg, Fast, noise-free memory for photon synchronization at room temperature, Sci. Adv. 4, eaap8598 (2018).
  30. S. Gao, O. Lazo-Arjona, B. Brecht, K. T. Kaczmarek, S. E. Thomas, J. Nunn, P. M. Ledingham, D. J. Saunders, and I. A. Walmsley, Optimal Coherent Filtering for Single Noisy Photons, Phys. Rev. Lett. 123, 213604 (2019).
  31. M. A. Zentile, J. Keaveney, L. Weller, D. J. Whiting, C. S. Adams, and I. G. Hughes, Elecsus: A program to calculate the electric susceptibility of an atomic ensemble, Comput. Phys. Commun. 189, 162 (2015).
  32. K. Surmacz, J. Nunn, K. Reim, K. C. Lee, V. O. Lorenz, B. Sussman, I. A. Walmsley, and D. Jaksch, Efficient spatially resolved multimode quantum memory, Phys. Rev. A 78, 033806 (2008).
  33. C. E. Theodosiou, Lifetimes of alkali-metal—atom Rydberg states, Phys. Rev. A 30, 2881 (1984).
  34. M. S. Safronova, C. J. Williams, and C. W. Clark, Relativistic many-body calculations of electric-dipole matrix elements, lifetimes, and polarizabilities in rubidium, Phys. Rev. A 69, 022509 (2004).
  35. D. Main, T. M. Hird, S. Gao, E. Oguz, D. J. Saunders, I. A. Walmsley, and P. M. Ledingham, Preparing narrow velocity distributions for quantum memories in room-temperature alkali-metal vapors, Phys. Rev. A 103, 043105 (2021).
  36. J. Nunn, I. A. Walmsley, M. G. Raymer, K. Surmacz, F. C. Waldermann, Z. Wang, and D. Jaksch, Mapping broadband single-photon wave packets into an atomic memory, Phys. Rev. A 75, 011401 (2007).
  37. A. V. Gorshkov, A. André, M. Fleischhauer, A. S. Sørensen, and M. D. Lukin, Universal Approach to Optimal Photon Storage in Atomic Media, Phys. Rev. Lett. 98, 123601 (2007).
  38. M. Gündǒgan, P. M. Ledingham, K. Kutluer, M. Mazzera, and H. De Riedmatten, Solid State Spin-Wave Quantum Memory for Time-Bin Qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 1 (2015).
  39. S. Kolatschek, C. Nawrath, S. Bauer, J. Huang, J. Fischer, R. Sittig, M. Jetter, S. L. Portalupi, and P. Michler, Bright Purcell enhanced single-photon source in the telecom O-band based on a quantum dot in a circular Bragg grating, Nano Lett. 21, 7740 (2021).
  40. T. Lettner, S. Gyger, K. D. Zeuner, L. Schweickert, S. Steinhauer, C. Reuterskiöld Hedlund, S. Stroj, A. Rastelli, M. Hammar, R. Trotta, K. D. Jöns, and V. Zwiller, Strain-controlled quantum dot fine structure for entangled photon generation at 1550 nm, Nano Lett. 21, 10501 (2021).
  41. J. Guo, X. Feng, P. Yang, Z. Yu, L. Q. Chen, C.-H. Yuan, and W. Zhang, High-performance raman quantum memory with optimal control in room temperature atoms, Nat. Commun. 10, 148 (2019).
  42. D. Main, T. M. Hird, S. Gao, I. A. Walmsley, and P. M. Ledingham, Room temperature atomic frequency comb storage for light, Opt. Lett. 46, 2960 (2021).
  43. R. Finkelstein, O. Lahad, I. Cohen, O. Davidson, S. Kiriati, E. Poem, and O. Firstenberg, Continuous Protection of a Collective State from Inhomogeneous Dephasing, Phys. Rev. X 11, 011008 (2021).
  44. S. A. Moiseev and S. Kröll, Complete Reconstruction of the Quantum State of a Single-Photon Wave Packet Absorbed by a Doppler-Broadened Transition, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 173601 (2001).

Outline

Information

Phys. Rev. Applied 19, L031005– Published 16 March, 2023
  • Received 8 November 2022
  • Revised 11 February 2023
  • Accepted 15 February 2023
Crossmark - Check for updates button

© 2023 American Physical Society

Sign In to Your Journals Account

Filter

Filter

Article Lookup

Enter a citation