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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

Long-lived photon echo in doped nanocrystals

А. А. Калачев, Daria D. Vlasova

Published Mar 3, 2008• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The possibility of increase of the information storage time in optical memory devices based on the long-lived photon echo in rare-earth ion doped crystals provided that the latter are nanometer ones is analyzed. Taking into account that in such materials the information storage time is determined by the population lifetimes of hyperfine sublevels of a ground electron state it is possible to increase it due to the modification of phonon density of states in nanocrystals as compared to bulk crystals.

DOI
10.1117/12.801683

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•Apr 28, 2017•0 citations
The possibility of increase of the information storage time in optical memory devices based on the long-lived photon echo in rare-earth ion doped crystals provided that the latter are nanometer ones is analyzed. Taking into account that in such materials the information storage time is determined by the population lifetimes of hyperfine sublevels of a ground electron state it is possible to increase it due to the modification of phonon density of states in nanocrystals as compared to bulk crystals.
Abstract Quantum memory is a core enabling device for large-scale quantum networks, serving as the fundamental building block for quantum repeaters and transportable quantum memories. Among various physical platforms, rare-earth-ion-doped crystals stand out as one of the most promising solid-state candidates for long-lived photonic quantum memories, owing to their exceptionally long spin coherence time and their compatibility with integration. In this review, we first introduce the physical mechanisms underlying long-lived spin coherence in rare-earth systems, with particular emphasis on the zero-first-order-Zeeman transition and dynamical decoupling techniques. We then review the experimental progress in this field, highlighting three distinct lifetimes—the spin coherence time, the light storage time, and the quantum storage time—and covering experiments that have achieved hour-scale spin coherence, minute- to hour-scale light storage, and minute-scale single-photon-level quantum storage. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges that hinder the realization of practical long-lived quantum memories, explore potential strategies to overcome these obstacles, and outline the prospects for their future applications in quantum networks.
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).
Photonic quantum memories are important devices in quantum information science, and are crucial for several applications including quantum repeaters and quantum networks. Rare-earth (RE) doped crystals are promising candidates as quantum memories for light as they offer coherence properties comparable to those of atomic systems, but free of the drawbacks deriving from atomic motion. The research on RE based quantum memories has been so far mostly focused on the mapping of photonic quantum bits to optical collective excitations, but this leads to short lived and mostly pre-determined storage. However, some RE ions, as Praseodymium and Europium, exhibit the suitable energy level scheme, with three long-lived hyperfine ground states, to enable the spin-wave storage by transferring the collective optical excitations into collective spin excitations. Proof of principle spin-wave quantum memories have been reported in rare-earth doped crystals, using weak coherent states as input [1,2]. Here, I will present our recent results on the realization of multimode spin-wave quantum memories in a Praseodymium doped crystal, using non-classical input light. [1] M. Gündoğan, P. M. Ledingham, K. Kutluer, M. Mazzera and H. de Riedmatten , A solid state spin-wave quantum memory for time-bin qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 230501 (2015) [2] P. Jobez, C. Laplane, N. Timoney, N. Gisin, A. Ferrier, P. Goldner, and M. Afzelius, Coherent Spin Control at the Quantum Level in an Ensemble-Based Optical Memory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 230502 (2015)