arXiv:1508.07754 · Physical Review A
Storing a single photon as a spin wave entangled with a flying photon in the telecommunication bandwidth
Wei Zhang, Dong-Sheng Ding, Shuai Shi, Yan Li, Zhi‐Yuan Zhou, Bao‐Sen Shi, Guang‐Can Guo
Abstract
Quantum memory is an essential building block for quantum communication and scalable linear quantum computation. Storing two-color entangled photons with one photon being at the telecommunication (telecom) wavelength while the other photon is compatible with quantum memory has great advantages toward the realization of the fiber-based long-distance quantum communication with the aid of quantum repeaters. Here, we report an experimental realization of storing a photon entangled with a telecom photon in polarization as an atomic spin wave in a cold atomic ensemble, thus establishing the entanglement between the telecom-band photon and the atomic-ensemble memory in a polarization degree of freedom. The reconstructed density matrix and the violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt inequality clearly show the preservation of quantum entanglement during storage. Our result is very promising for establishing a long-distance quantum network based on cold atomic ensembles.