Quantum memory, a pivotal hub in quantum information processing, is expected to achieve temporal storage and coherent manipulation of quantum states with memory efficiency exceeding 90% and quantum fidelity surpassing the noncloning limit. However, the current performance falls short of these requirements due to the inherent trade-off between memory efficiency enhancement and noise amplification, which not only imposes significant demands on quantum purification but also fundamentally impedes continuous-variable quantum information processing. In this Letter, we break through these constraints by unveiling a Hankel transform spatiotemporal mapping for light-spin-wave conversion in quantum memory and proposing an intelligently light-manipulated strategy for spin wave compaction, which maximizes memory efficiency while suppressing excess noise. This strategy is experimentally demonstrated for a Raman quantum memory in warm ^{87}Rb atomic vapor with an efficiency up to 94.6±1% and a low noise level of only 0.026±0.012 photon per pulse. The unconditional fidelity reaches 98.91±0.1% with an average of 1.0 photon per pulse for a 17 ns input signal. Our results successfully demonstrate a practical benchmark for broadband quantum memory that may facilitate advancements in high-speed quantum networks, quantum state manipulation, and scalable quantum computation.
Quantum memory, a pivotal hub in quantum information processing, is expected to achieve temporal storage and coherent manipulation of quantum states with memory efficiency exceeding 90% and quantum fidelity surpassing the noncloning limit. However, the current performance falls short of these requirements due to the inherent trade-off between memory efficiency enhancement and noise amplification, which not only imposes significant demands on quantum purification but also fundamentally impedes continuous-variable quantum information processing. In this Letter, we break through these constraints by unveiling a Hankel transform spatiotemporal mapping for light-spin-wave conversion in quantum memory and proposing an intelligently light-manipulated strategy for spin wave compaction, which maximizes memory efficiency while suppressing excess noise. This strategy is experimentally demonstrated for a Raman quantum memory in warm ^{87}Rb atomic vapor with an efficiency up to 94.6±1% and a low noise level of only 0.026±0.012 photon per pulse. The unconditional fidelity reaches 98.91±0.1% with an average of 1.0 photon per pulse for a 17 ns input signal. Our results successfully demonstrate a practical benchmark for broadband quantum memory that may facilitate advancements in high-speed quantum networks, quantum state manipulation, and scalable quantum computation.
An optical quantum memory, a device which can store and retrieve on demand an arbitrary quantum state at the single photon level, has been identified as a significant cornerstone of photonic quantum technologies. The development of such a memory would allow the creation and development of a large number of quantum technologies. These would range from the ability to synchronise processing steps in an optical quantum computer, to the construction of a quantum repeater which would allow faithful transmission of quantum states over arbitrarily long distances. In this thesis I investigate broadband light storage in a room-temperature Raman memory for purposes of quantum information processing with photons. During the course of this thesis, a novel scheme to suppress four-wave mixing noise is simulated, based on equations derived to describe the physics of the memory interaction. The experimental arrangement to test the suppression method is described and an original method using photon statistics is demonstrated. The results of these experiments prove the ability of the memory to retrieve and maintain the non-classicality of the state, given a single photon input. Following the affirmation that, using this noise suppression technique, the memory can function at the single-photon level, I go on to consider how the temporal-spectral properties of a pulsed mode of light may be manipulated using the memory. There are two primary reasons for this investigation: 1) Increasing the efficiency of the read-in process by carving the optimum mode of the memory 2) Using the memory as a device operating in a high dimensional quantum information basis. The restrictions of such applications are considered and a method to test the efficacy of transformations in this basis is devised and experimentally tested. I also perform demonstrations of light storage using conventional temporal modes using a novel method of velocity selection within warm vapour. Finally I detail further experiments that are achievable with the Raman quantum memory given the progress that has been achieved during my DPhil research. The results show that the Raman memory is a viable candidate for a practical route towards low-noise quantum storage and for manipulation of temporal modes of light.
High-performance quantum memory for quantized states of light is a prerequisite building block of quantum information technology. Despite great progresses of optical quantum memories based on interactions of light and atoms, physical features of these memories still cannot satisfy requirements for applications in practical quantum information systems, since all of them suffer from trade-off between memory efficiency and excess noise. Here, we report a high-performance cavity-enhanced electromagnetically-induced-transparency memory with warm atomic cell in which a scheme of optimizing the spatial and temporal modes based on the time-reversal approach is applied. The memory efficiency up to 67 ± 1% is directly measured and a noise level close to quantum noise limit is simultaneously reached. It has been experimentally demonstrated that the average fidelities for a set of input coherent states with different phases and amplitudes within a Gaussian distribution have exceeded the classical benchmark fidelities. Thus the realized quantum memory platform has been capable of preserving quantized optical states, and is ready to be applied in quantum information systems, such as distributed quantum logic gates and quantum-enhanced atomic magnetometry.
In continuous-variable quantum information processing, it is crucial to develop high-efficiency and broadband quantum memory of squeezed light, which enables the storage of full-bandwidth information. Here, we present a quantum memory of squeezed light with up to 24 MHz bandwidth, which is at least 12 times that of previous narrowband resonant memory systems, via a far-off resonant Raman process. We achieve output squeezing of as high as 1.0 dB with fidelity above 92% and a memory efficiency of 80%, corresponding to an end-to-end efficiency of 64.2%, when input squeezing is 1.6 dB. The lowest excess noise of 0.025 shot-noise-unit in the memory system is estimated by the noisy channel model which is benefited from optimizing quantum memory performance with a backward retrieval strategy. Our results represent a breakthrough in high-performance memory for squeezed states within tens of MHz-level bandwidth, which has potential applications in high-speed quantum information processing.
Future optical quantum technologies, such as quantum networks, distributed quantum computing and sensing, demand efficient, broadband quantum memories. However, achieving high efficiency without introducing noise, reducing bandwidth, or limiting scalability remains a challenge. Here, we present an approach to enhance quantum memory protocols by leveraging constructive light–matter interference, leading to an increase in memory efficiency without increasing atomic density or laser intensity. We implement this method in a Raman quantum memory in warm cesium vapor and achieve more than a threefold improvement in total efficiency, reaching (34.3±8.4)%, while retaining GHz-bandwidth operation and low noise levels. Numerical simulations predict that this approach can boost efficiencies in systems limited by atomic density, such as cold atomic ensembles, from 65% to beyond 96%, while in warm atomic vapors, it could reduce the laser intensity needed to reach a given efficiency by over an order-of-magnitude, exceeding 95% total efficiency. Furthermore, our method preserves the single-mode nature of the memory at high efficiencies. This protocol is applicable to various memory architectures, paving the way toward scalable, efficient, low-noise, and high-bandwidth quantum memories.
Photonic quantum information processing is a key element for scalable quantum technologies, and has applications in secure long-distance quantum communication and connecting nodes of a quantum computation network. However, logical photon-photon gates and state-of-the-art single photon sources rely on probabilistic processes. Quantum memories are devices that enable storage and on-demand recall of quantum states of light, and have been highlighted as a vital component in photonic networks to overcome the scaling problem by synchronising probabilistic processes. The Raman memory has a large storage bandwidth and high synchronising capacity, and is an ideal candidate for local synchronisation. However, previous demonstrations of the Raman memory suffer from four-wave mixing noise, which prohibits quantum level operation. In this thesis I investigate methods to increase the signal to noise ratio in the Raman memory. I investigate increasing the light-matter coupling strength to boost the memory efficiency, and then explore two different methods to suppress four-wave mixing noise. I demonstrate that operating the Raman memory in a cavity is successful in reducing four-wave mixing, but it is technically challenging to maintain a high memory efficiency. I investigate a new method of noise suppression by introducing an absorption feature at the frequency of the unwanted noise field. This technically simple method is successful in reducing the noise by an order of magnitude, and will be applicable to many quantum memory protocols. In the final section of this thesis I explore the temporal mode properties of the Raman memory. I demonstrate that the Raman memory is single mode and can be used to separate and manipulate temporal modes of light. This positions the Raman memory as a key device for enabling high-dimensional photonic quantum information processing, and enhancing light-matter interactions. These results pave the way towards an efficient, low-noise, mode-selective quantum memory.
Abstract Quantum memories are essential for quantum information processing. Techniques have been developed for quantum memory based on atomic ensembles. The atomic memories through optical resonance usually suffer from the narrow-band limitation. The far off-resonant Raman process is a promising candidate for atomic memories due to broad bandwidths and high speeds. However, to date, the low memory efficiency remains an unsolved bottleneck. Here, we demonstrate a high-performance atomic Raman memory in 87 Rb vapour with the development of an optimal control technique. A memory efficiency of above 82.0% for 6 ns~20 ns optical pulses is achieved. In particular, an unconditional fidelity of up to 98.0%, significantly exceeding the no-cloning limit, is obtained with the tomography reconstruction for a single-photon level coherent input. Our work marks an important advance of atomic memory towards practical applications in quantum information processing.