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arXiv:1503.05328 · Physical Review Letters

Time-Reversal-Symmetric Single-Photon Wave Packets for Free-Space Quantum Communication

Nils Trautmann, G. Alber, G. S. Agarwal, Gerd Leuchs

Published Apr 27, 2015• 12 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Readout and retrieval processes are proposed for efficient, high-fidelity quantum state transfer between a matter qubit, encoded in the level structure of a single atom or ion, and a photonic qubit, encoded in a time-reversal-symmetric single-photon wave packet. They are based on controlling spontaneous photon emission and absorption of a matter qubit on demand in free space by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. As these processes do not involve mode selection by high-finesse cavities or photon transport through optical fibers, they offer interesting perspectives as basic building blocks for free-space quantum-communication protocols.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.114.173601

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Readout and retrieval processes are proposed for efficient, high-fidelity quantum state transfer between a matter qubit, encoded in the level structure of a single atom or ion, and a photonic qubit, encoded in a time-reversal-symmetric single-photon wave packet. They are based on controlling spontaneous photon emission and absorption of a matter qubit on demand in free space by stimulated Raman adiabatic passage. As these processes do not involve mode selection by high-finesse cavities or photon transport through optical fibers, they offer interesting perspectives as basic building blocks for free-space quantum-communication protocols.
We propose a scheme for triggering a dissipation-dominated highly efficient excitation transfer from a single-photon wave packet to a single quantum emitter. This single-photon-induced optical pumping turns dominant dissipative processes, such as spontaneous photon emission by the emitter or cavity decay, into valuable tools for quantum information processing and quantum communication. It works for an arbitrarily shaped single-photon wave packet with sufficiently small bandwidth provided a matching condition is satisfied which balances the dissipative rates involved. Our scheme does not require additional laser pulses or quantum feedback and does not rely on high finesse optical resonators. In particular, it can be used to enhance significantly the coupling of a single photon to a single quantum emitter implanted in a one-dimensional waveguide or even in a free space scenario. We demonstrate the usefulness of our scheme for building a deterministic quantum memory and a deterministic frequency converter between photonic qubits of different wavelengths.
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A sequence of single photons is emitted on demand from a single three-level atom strongly coupled to a high-finesse optical cavity. The photons are generated by an adiabatically driven stimulated Raman transition between two atomic ground states, with the vacuum field of the cavity stimulating one branch of the transition, and laser pulses deterministically driving the other branch. This process is unitary and therefore intrinsically reversible, which is essential for quantum communication and networking, and the photons should be appropriate for all-optical quantum information processing.
A cavity coupling, a charged nanodot, and a fiber can act as a quantum interface, through which a stationary spin qubit and a flying photon qubit can be interconverted via a cavity-assisted Raman process. This Raman process can be made to generate or annihilate an arbitrarily shaped single-photon wave packet by pulse shaping the controlling laser field. This quantum interface forms the basis for many essential functions of a quantum network, including sending, receiving, transferring, swapping, and entangling qubits at distributed quantum nodes as well as a deterministic source and an efficient detector of a single-photon wave packet with arbitrarily specified shape and average photon number. Numerical study of errors from noise and system parameters on the operations shows high fidelity and robust tolerance.
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Hybrid integrated quantum photonic circuits have the potential to scale up the number of quantum nodes and to build a network with distributed quantum-information-processing units at affordable resources. A central need of such systems is to have near-unity success-rate state transfer between the quantum nodes. This turns out to be a grand challenge since stringent conditions of spatial mode matching and time-reversal symmetry between the sending and receiving nodes have to be simultaneously satisfied. Here we devise a type of hybrid quantum node consisting of a single solid-state quantum system and a coupled-cavity structure toward achieving perfect state transfer between two distant nodes connected via waveguides. The hybrid node possesses flexibility in tailoring the temporal profile of the emitted single-photon wave packet without any dynamic modulation. In particular, we show it could emit time-reversal symmetric single-photon wave packets and fully couple the emission to the waveguide, fulfilling the conditions for perfect quantum state transfer. We develop a complete theoretical framework and provide a clear physical picture of the protocol for transferring a superposition state. We show ideally the simple node structures with one, two, and three chain-coupled microring resonators could lead to total success rates of 90.5%, 97.5%, and 99.3%, respectively. We then further discuss the influence of imperfections and experimental realizations of our scheme with integrated quantum photonics.