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The Rochester Conferences on Coherence and Quantum Optics and the Quantum Information and Measurement meeting

Can Quantum Memories operate at Room Temperature?

Andreas Neuzner, T. Latka, Josef Schupp, Christian Noelleke, Andreas Reiserer, Stephan Ritter, Gerhard Rempe, Eden V. Figueroa

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We use a warm vapor of 87Rb atoms and store light pulses containing on average a single photon using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We retrieve these pulses into arbitrary spatio-temporal modes and demonstrate that employing a suitable filtering system allows us to operate in a regime in which the retrieved excitations outnumber concurrent background photons by a factor of 3.

DOI
10.1364/qim.2013.w6.04

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We use a warm vapor of 87Rb atoms and store light pulses containing on average a single photon using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We retrieve these pulses into arbitrary spatio-temporal modes and demonstrate that employing a suitable filtering system allows us to operate in a regime in which the retrieved excitations outnumber concurrent background photons by a factor of 3.
Quantum memories play a pivotal role in establishing long-distance communication by entanglement swapping operations within quantum repeater nodes. Constructing such a quantum memory involves Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) within atomic vapors at room temperatures to store highly attenuated coherent light pulses down to the level of single photons. The photons may be generated from quantum nodes containing stationary quantum systems, such as atoms or semiconductor quantum dots (QDs). QDs serve as a potent source of quantum light, furnishing bright, precisely timed single photons of exceptional purity. While previous endeavors have demonstrated the integration of QDs with atomic vapors through techniques like “slow light,” the development of a dedicated quantum memory for QDs remains unmatched. In our study, we introduce an EIT quantum memory hosted within warm cesium vapor. Our approach exhibits a good efficiency in storing faint coherent light pulses at the single photon level. Moreover, the measured bandwidth of around 200 MHz approaches the Fourier-limited emission characteristics of QDs. We present initial efforts to match the emission from QDs with our quantum memory and discuss application scenarios of room temperature EIT quantum memories.
Quantum memories can substantially increase the efficiency of long-distance communications by synchronizing entanglement swapping operations in quantum repeater nodes. To build a quantum memory, electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in atomic vapors can be exploited to coherently store light pulses even at room temperatures. As a quantum source of light, semiconductor quantum dots (QD) offer bright on-demand single photons with high purity.4 Interfacing QDs with atomic vapors has been shown by “slow light” but a quantum memory for QDs is yet to be demonstrated. In this work, we develop an EIT quantum memory hosted in warm cesium vapor. Storage of faint coherent light pulses on the single photon level shows high storage efficiency. A measured bandwidth in the order of 200 MHz makes the memory compatible with the Fourier-limited emission of QDs embedded in micropillar cavities. We show the first attempts to interface the emission from a QD-micropillar with our quantum memory by finetuning the emission wavelength of the emitters to one of the hyperfine transitions in Cs, where the EIT memory takes place. This work sets the base for a hybrid quantum memory based on atomic ensembles for an on-demand semiconductor single-photon source.
Quantum memory provides a platform for building quantum networks in quantum information processing. Applications of said networks include quantum gates for quantum computing and quantum repeaters for long distance quantum key distribution. An optical quantum memory can be realized by a cold atom system combined with electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). However, room temperature quantum memory via vapor cells benefit from its easy operation without the need for laser cooling and trapping, promoting the scalability. In this work, we studied and tested EIT in a Rubidium vapor cell at room temperature, by storing and retrieving a classical light source using probe and control lasers. We also constructed a portable quantum memory system and realized the storage of light at the single-photon level at room temperature. For a future perspective, we designed the quantum memory system with cavities, wishing to breakthrough in storage efficiency. | 37 pages
An optical quantum memory is a stationary device that is capable of storing and recreating photonic qubits with a higher fidelity than any classical device. Thus far, these two requirements have been fulfilled for polarization qubits in systems based on cold atoms and cryogenically cooled crystals. Here, we report a room-temperature memory capable of storing arbitrary polarization qubits with a signal-to-background ratio higher than 1 and an average fidelity surpassing the classical benchmark for weak laser pulses containing 1.6 photons on average, without taking into account non-unitary operation. Our results demonstrate that a common vapor cell can reach the low background noise levels necessary for polarization qubit storage using single-photon level light, and propels atomic-vapor systems towards a level of functionality akin to other quantum information processing architectures.
Room-temperature, easy-to-operate quantum memories are essential building blocks for future long distance quantum information networks operating on an intercontinental scale, because devices like quantum repeaters, based on quantum memories, will have to be deployed in potentially remote, inaccessible locations. Here we demonstrate controllable, broadband and efficient storage and retrieval of weak coherent light pulses at the single-photon level in warm atomic cesium vapor using the robust far off-resonant Raman memory scheme. We show that the unconditional noise floor of this technically simple quantum memory is low enough to operate in the quantum regime, even in a room-temperature environment.