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arXiv:1712.07747 · Optics Letters

Spatially resolved control of fictitious magnetic fields in a cold atomic ensemble

Adam Leszczyński, Mateusz Mazelanik, Michał Lipka, Michal P. Parniak, Michał Dąbrowski, Wojciech Wasilewski

Published Feb 27, 2018• 17 citations

Abstract

Effective and unrestricted engineering of atom-photon interactions requires precise spatially resolved control of light beams. The significant potential of such manipulations lies in a set of disciplines ranging from solid-state to atomic physics. Here we use a Zeeman-like ac-Stark shift caused by a shaped laser beam to perform rotations of spins with spatial resolution in a large ensemble of cold rubidium atoms. We show that inhomogeneities of light intensity are the main source of dephasing and, thus, decoherence; yet, with proper beam shaping, this deleterious effect is strongly mitigated allowing rotations of 15 rad within one spin-precession lifetime. Finally, as a particular example of a complex manipulation enabled by our scheme, we demonstrate a range of collapse-and-revival behaviors of a free-induction decay signal by imprinting comb-like patterns on the atomic ensemble.

DOI: 10.1364/ol.43.001147

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In this paper, we have demonstrated that optically generated fictitious magnetic fields can be utilized to extend the lifetime of quantum memories in cold atomic ensembles. All the degrees of freedom of an AC Stark shift, such as polarization, spatial profile, and temporal waveform, can be readily controlled in a precise manner. Temporal fluctuations over several experimental cycles and spatial inhomogeneities along a cold atomic gas have been compensated by an optical beam. The advantage of employing fictitious magnetic fields for quantum storage lies in the speed and spatial precision with which these fields can be synthesized. Our simple and versatile technique can find widespread application in coherent pulse and single-photon storage across various atomic species. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

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While several methods of information processing have been realized in quantum memories, thorough utilization of the spatial degree of freedom in highly-multimode memories demands a flexible method analogous to spatial light modulators (SLM) widely exploited in the broad field of optics to modulate the amplitude or phase of light. We want to present a spatial spin-wave modulator (SSM), allowing engineering of a spatial phase of spin-waves stored in a cold atomic memory. Using the SLM and polarizers we are able to shape a laser beam into an arbitrary shape. Such a prepared beam illuminates a cold rubidium cloud and due to ac-Stark effect the spatial phase of stored spin-waves is modified. The relative standard deviation of phase given by our SSM amounts to about 10%. We have also shown that losses scale quadratically with given phase. On one hand, that strongly limits the efficiency of SSM for strong phase modulation, but on the other hand enables efficient modulation in small range of several radians. During our research we have demonstrated a compensation of the quadratic phase introduced by a cylindrical lens placed in a readout path of our quantum memory. Moreover, introducing more complicated shapes of the ac-Stark beam, like saw or sine shape, we can shift and split spin-waves in Fourier domain [1]. Therefore we were able to interfere spin-waves stored in different spatial and temporal modes. This makes our SSM very robust tool which in conjugation with gradient echo memory can potentially allow to implement some new quantum protocols [2]. Finally, going to the single photon level we successfully observed a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference of two spin-waves stored in different spatial modes of our memory [3].