Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics Europe & European Quantum Electronics Conference (CLEO/Europe-EQEC)
Optimal quantum storage of broadband single photons
Joshua Nunn, F. C. Waldermann, Karl Surmacz, Z. Wang, Dieter Jaksch, Ian A. Walmsley
Abstract
Summary form only given. The authors present a theoretical analysis of a quantum memory which shows how to efficiently transfer an ultrashort single photon wavepacket to a long-lived collective excitation of an ensemble of absorbers with the well-known three level Lambda-structure, by application of an ancillary control field. We describe a general prescription for optimizing the efficiency of the storage process for arbitrary detunings, and then we show how the dynamics simplify in the off-resonant limit. In this case spontaneous emission losses are eliminated and the interaction becomes unitary; being characterized by a universal mode decomposition.