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arXiv:0908.2309 · Physical Review Letters

Demonstration of Atomic Frequency Comb Memory for Light with Spin-Wave Storage

Mikael Afzelius, Imam Usmani, A. Amari, Björn Lauritzen, Andreas Walther, Christoph Simon, Nicolas Sangouard, Jiří Minář, Hugues de Riedmatten, Nicolas Gisin, Stefan Kröll

Published Jan 27, 2010• 276 citations
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Abstract

We present a light-storage experiment in a praseodymium-doped crystal where the light is mapped onto an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition shaped into an atomic frequency comb. After absorption of the light, the optical excitation is converted into a spin-wave excitation by a control pulse. A second control pulse reads the memory (on-demand) by reconverting the spin-wave excitation to an optical one, where the comb structure causes a photon-echo-type rephasing of the dipole moments and directional retrieval of the light. This combination of photon-echo and spin-wave storage allows us to store submicrosecond (450 ns) pulses for up to 20 mus. The scheme has a high potential for storing multiple temporal modes in the single-photon regime, which is an important resource for future long-distance quantum communication based on quantum repeaters.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.104.040503

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We present a light-storage experiment in a praseodymium-doped crystal where the light is mapped onto an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition shaped into an atomic frequency comb. After absorption of the light, the optical excitation is converted into a spin-wave excitation by a control pulse. A second control pulse reads the memory (on-demand) by reconverting the spin-wave excitation to an optical one, where the comb structure causes a photon-echo-type rephasing of the dipole moments and directional retrieval of the light. This combination of photon-echo and spin-wave storage allows us to store submicrosecond (450 ns) pulses for up to 20 mus. The scheme has a high potential for storing multiple temporal modes in the single-photon regime, which is an important resource for future long-distance quantum communication based on quantum repeaters.
It has been shown that an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition shaped into an atomic frequency comb can store a large number of temporal modes of the electromagnetic field at the single-photon level without the need to increase the optical depth of the storage material. The readout of light modes is made efficient thanks to the rephasing of the optical-wavelength coherence similar to photon-echo-type techniques, and the reemission time is given by the comb structure. For on-demand readout and long storage times, two control fields are used to transfer the optical coherence back and forth into a spin wave. Here, we present a detailed analysis of the spin-wave storage based on chirped adiabatic control fields. In particular, we verify that chirped fields require significantly weaker intensities than $\ensuremath{\pi}$ pulses. The price to pay is a reduction of the multimode storage capacity that we quantify for realistic material parameters associated with solids doped with rare-earth-metal ions.
An efficient multimode quantum memory is a crucial resource for long-distance quantum communication based on quantum repeaters. We propose a quantum memory based on spectral shaping of an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition into an atomic frequency comb (AFC). The spectral width of the AFC allows efficient storage of multiple temporal modes without the need to increase the absorption depth of the storage material, in contrast to previously known quantum memories. Efficient readout is possible thanks to rephasing of the atomic dipoles due to the AFC structure. Long-time storage and on-demand readout is achieved by use of spin states in a lambda-type configuration. We show that an AFC quantum memory realized in solids doped with rare-earth-metal ions could store hundreds of modes or more with close to unit efficiency, for material parameters achievable today.
We report on the coherent and multi-temporal mode storage of light using the full atomic frequency comb memory scheme. The scheme involves the transfer of optical atomic excitations in Pr 3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 to spin waves in hyperfine levels using strong single-frequency transfer pulses. Using this scheme, a total of five temporal modes are stored and recalled on-demand from the memory. The coherence of the storage and retrieval is characterized using a time-bin interference measurement resulting in visibilities higher than 80%, independent of the storage time. This coherent and multimode spin-wave memory is promising as a quantum memory for light.
We demonstrate experimentally an efficient coherent rephasing scheme for the storage and recall of weak coherent light pulses in an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition in a Pr(3+):YSO crystal at 2.1 K. Precise optical pumping using a frequency stable (≈1 kHz linewidth) laser is employed to create a highly controllable atomic frequency comb structure. We report single photon level storage and retrieval efficiencies of 25%, based on coherent photon-echo-type reemission in the forward direction. The high efficiency is mainly a product of our highly controllable and precise ensemble-shaping technique. The coherence property of the quantum memory is proved through interference between a super-Gaussian pulse and the emitted echo.
A long-lived quantum memory is a firm requirement for implementing a quantum repeater scheme. Recent progress in solid-state rare-earth-ion-doped systems justifies their status as very strong candidates for such systems. Nonetheless an optical memory based on spin-wave storage at the single-photon level has not been shown in such a system to date, which is crucial for achieving the long storage times required for quantum repeaters. In this paper we show that it is possible to execute a complete atomic frequency comb (AFC) scheme, including spin-wave storage, with weak coherent pulses of $\overline{n}=2.5\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.6$ photons per pulse. We discuss in detail the experimental steps required to obtain this result and demonstrate the coherence of a stored time-bin pulse. We show a noise level of $(7.1\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}2.3)\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{\ensuremath{-}3}$ photons per mode during storage, and this relatively low noise level paves the way for future quantum optics experiments using spin waves in rare-earth-doped crystals.
We report on the experimental demonstration of an optical spin-wave memory, based on the atomic frequency comb (AFC) scheme, where the storage efficiency is strongly enhanced by an optical cavity. The cavity is of low finesse, but operated in an impedance matching regime to achieve high absorption in our intrinsically low-absorbing Eu 3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 crystal. For storage of optical pulses as an optical excitation (AFC echoes), we reach efficiencies of 53% and 28% for 2 μ s and 10 μ s delays, respectively. For a complete AFC spin-wave memory we reach an efficiency of 12%, including spin-wave dephasing, which is a 12-fold increase with respect to previous results in this material. This result is an important step towards the goal of making efficient and long-lived quantum memories based on spin waves, in the context of quantum repeaters and quantum networks.