We analyze the material requirements for recording, storage, and processing of optically encoded information using coherent optical transients in resonant solids. We introduce new figures of merit (FOM’s) that explicitly account for the ratio between the rate of the decoherence and the rate of the spontaneous radiative decay. Highest FOM values are achieved when the decoherence rate approaches the fundamental limit set by spontaneous emission under the condition that the total transition oscillator strength is concentrated between a single pair of energy levels. We analyze FOM’s of some of the most promising rare-earth-doped crystals at cryogenic temperatures.
We analyze the material requirements for recording, storage, and processing of optically encoded information using coherent optical transients in resonant solids. We introduce new figures of merit (FOM’s) that explicitly account for the ratio between the rate of the decoherence and the rate of the spontaneous radiative decay. Highest FOM values are achieved when the decoherence rate approaches the fundamental limit set by spontaneous emission under the condition that the total transition oscillator strength is concentrated between a single pair of energy levels. We analyze FOM’s of some of the most promising rare-earth-doped crystals at cryogenic temperatures.
We introduce new figures of merit (FOM's) for resonant optical materials used in recording, storage, and processing of optically encoded information using coherent optical transients. The goal is to account for maximum coherence storage time as well as for efficiency of the light matter interaction quantified using the ratio between the rate of dephasing and the rate of spontaneous radiative decay. Highest FOM values are achieved when the dephasing rate approaches the fundamental limit set by spontaneous emission under the condition that the total transition oscillator strength is concentrated between a single pair of energy levels. In this case, the information (both classical and quantum) can be transferred from the radiation field to the storage medium and back at the fastest possible rate, while the loss of optically prepared coherence is minimized. We analyze FOM's of some of the most promising rare-earth-doped crystals at cryogenic temperatures and show that the homogeneous line width may approach the radiative limit in some cases even when the peak cross section remains below the fundamental limit.
Quantum memories for light are important resources as quantum interfaces between light and matter in future quantum information networks. In particular, solid state optical memories based on rare earth ion doped (REID) crystals are of great interest due to their unique physical properties. They provide large number of atoms naturally trapped in a solid with narrow optical and spin transitions. They indeed have excellent optical and spin state coherence times at cryogenic temperatures. Among the various rare-earth doped materials, Pr3+ :Y 2 SiO 5 crystals have shown excellent properties for light storage and exhibit a level scheme suitable for long lived storage in spin states.
Rare-earth-ion doped materials are studied for a quantum information protocol, controlled reversible inhomogeneous broadening, for storing single photons. Coherence properties of Er-doped silicate optical fibers and Er-doped LiNbO3 waveguiding structures are investigated. Spectral hole burning spectroscopy is performed in Erbium and Neodymium doped crystals and spectral tailoring is demonstrated in Nd³?:YVO4. The preservation of information encoded into the relative phase and amplitudes of optical pulses during storage and retrieval in an optical memory based on stimulated photon echo is demonstrated. Furthermore photon echoes stored in spatially separated optical memories in several temporal modes, are retrieved and then combined at a beam splitter. They show almost perfect interference demonstrating both phase preserving storage and indistinguishability of photon echoes. Finally, we report an interference experiment of spontaneous emission of light from two distant solid-state ensembles of atoms and the resulting high fringe visibility implies that the observed spontaneous emission is coherent.
We present a detailed analysis of a high-bandwidth quantum memory protocol for storing single photons in a rare-earth-ion doped crystal. The basic idea is to benefit from a coherent free-induced decay type re-emission which occurs naturally when a photon with a broadband spectrum is absorbed by a narrow atomic transition in an optically dense ensemble. This allows for a high-bandwidth memory for realistic material parameters. Long storage time and on-demand readout are obtained by means of spin states in a lambda-type configuration, through the transfer of the optical coherence to a spin coherence (so-called spin-wave storage). We give explicit formulae and show numerical results which make it possible to gain insight into the dependence of the memory efficiency on the optical depth and on the width and the shape of stored photons. We present a feasibility study in rare-earth doped crystals and show that high efficiencies and high bandwidth can be obtained with realistic parameters. High-bandwidth memories using spin-wave storage offers the possibility of very high time-bandwidth products, which is important for experiments where high repetition rates are needed.
Quantum information uses special properties of quantum systems to manipulate or transmit data. This results in new processes, which are impossible to obtain with classical devices. For example, quantum computing and quantum storage, which are two important fields in quantum information research, aim respectively at performing very fast calculations and at storing quantum states of photons. These two applications could be obtained in solid-state systems using rare earth doped crystals. In this context, the most important property of these materials is the long coherence lifetimes of rare earth ion optical and hyperfine transitions. This allows one to create long-lived superposition states, which is a fundamental requirement for efficient quantum computing and storage. Promising results have already been demonstrated in rare earth doped crystals but it will be difficult to improve them with current materials. In this paper, we discuss the general and specific requirements for rare earth ions and crystals in order to perform quantum computing with a large number of quantum bits as well as all solid-state quantum storage. We also present the properties of a few recently studied crystals: Ho3+:YVO4, Ho3+:LuVO4 (quantum computing) and Tm3+:Y3Al5O12 (quantum storage).
When doped into solid state transparent crystals, rare-earth ions can have optically excited states with milliseconds coherence time and up to six hours coherence time for hyperfine levels after being cooled down to liquid helium temperature. This long coherence property makes them unique as solid state material and attractive for quantum information applications.The rare-earth ions have narrow homogeneous linewidths on the order of ~ kHz. When doped into a crystal, the lattice structure is slightly distorted due to the size mismatch between the dopant and the host ions, resulting in slight differences in the local crystal fields at the dopant sites. Therefore, the resonance frequencies of the rare-earth ions are shifted relatively, resulting in an inhomogeneously broadened absorption profile, typically on the order of a few GHz. This provides the possibility of addressing each group of ions individually and engineering the absorption profile for different purposes by optical pumping using a narrow linewidth laser, and makes rare-earth-ion-doped crystals suitable for ensemble based quantum memories.Quantum memories are vital components for developing longdistance quantum communication. Part of this thesis project focused on making quantum memories with high efficiency and long storage time, especially using materials with low optical depth. To achieve this goal, a low finesse, unsymmetrical cavity was employed and experiments were carried out at (or close to) the impedance matched condition. Atomic frequency comb (AFC) protocol proposed for such an inhomogeneously broadened system was used to store coherent light for a certain time. 56% overall efficiency was achieved, and the main limiting factor for reaching even higher efficiency was the inefficient coupling between incoming light and the cavity mode. Other possible loss mechanisms were analyzed as well.Long-time, on-demand, quantum memory experiments were conducted with the help of two efficient radio-frequency rephasing pulses. Storage time was extended from microseconds to milliseconds after compensating (most of) the residual earth magnetic field in the lab. The opportunities and challenges of combing the cavity assistant quantum memory and the long time, on demand quantum memory were analyzed and possible solutions were proposed. Another part of the thesis project involves slow light-based applications in rare-earth-ion-doped crystals. The strong slow light effect at the presence a spectral hole is due to the fact that the light interacts with the absorbing ions outside the spectral hole off-resonantly, and most of the light energy is stored inside the ions as a polarization. For example, with a group velocity of 300 km/s, 99.9% of the pulse energy is stored in the ions when the pulse propagates inside the crystal. The slower the light propagates, the more energy is stored inside the medium. Based on this, a frequency shifter that is capable of shifting the light frequency of ± 4 MHz was demonstrated, and frequency shift up to GHz was proposed. Group velocity control by a factor of 20 and pulse compression in time by a factor of 2 were also demonstrated. The frequency shift and group velocity of the light are solely controlled by the external electric field, which makes them ideal for weak light situation. The unique property of such a frequency shifter and group velocity controller is that they could be made to accept light from an arbitrary incoming angle and polarization, for example, scattered light.