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arXiv:1301.3048 · New Journal of Physics

Coherent storage of temporally multimode light using a spin-wave atomic frequency comb memory

Mustafa Gündoğan, Margherita Mazzera, Patrick M. Ledingham, Matteo Cristiani, Hugues de Riedmatten

Published Apr 19, 2013• 75 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/15/4/045012

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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 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.
Quantum memory is a fundamental building block for large-scale quantum networks. On-demand optical storage with a large bandwidth, a high multimode capacity, and an integrated structure simultaneously is crucial for practical application. However, this has not been demonstrated yet. Here, we fabricate an on-chip waveguide in a 151Eu3+:Y2SiO5^{151}\mathrm{Eu}^{3+}:{\mathrm{Y}}_{2}{\mathrm{SiO}}_{5}151Eu3+:Y2​SiO5​ crystal with insertion losses of 0.2 dB, and propose a pumping scheme to enable spin-wave atomic frequency comb (AFC) storage with a bandwidth of 11 MHz inside the waveguide. Based on this, we demonstrate the storage of 200 temporal modes using the AFC scheme and conditional on-demand storage of 100 temporal modes using the spin-wave AFC scheme. The interference visibility between the readout light field and the reference light field is 99.099.0%\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.6%99.0 and 9797%\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}3%97 for AFC and spin-wave AFC storage, respectively, indicating the coherent nature of this low-loss, multimode, and integrated storage device.
153 Eu 3 + :Y 2 SiO 5 is a very attractive candidate for a long-lived, multimode quantum memory due to the long spin coherence time (∼15 ms), the relatively large hyperfine splitting (100 MHz) and the narrow optical homogeneous linewidth (∼100 Hz). Here we show an atomic frequency comb memory with spin-wave storage in a promising material 153 Eu 3 + :Y 2 SiO 5 , reaching storage times slightly beyond 10 μs. We analyse the efficiency of the storage process and discuss ways of improving it. We also measure the inhomogeneous spin linewidth of 153 Eu 3 + :Y 2 SiO 5 , which we find to be 69 ± 3 kHz. These results represent a further step towards realizing a long-lived, multimode solid-state quantum memory.
We report on the high-efficiency storage and retrieval of weak coherent optical pulses and photonic qubits in a cavity-enhanced solid-state quantum memory. By using an atomic frequency comb (AFC) memory in a Pr 3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 crystal embedded in an impedance-matched cavity, we stored weak coherent pulses at the single photon level with up to 62% efficiency for a pre-determined storage time of 2 µs. We also confirmed that the impedance-matched cavity enhances the efficiency for longer storage times up to 70 µs. Harnessing the temporal multimodality of the AFC scheme, we stored weak coherent time-bin qubits with a record (51 ± 2%) efficiency and a fidelity over (94.8 ± 1.4)%, limited by imperfections in the qubits creation and measurement.
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.