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Optical Engineering

Amplified slow light beam splitter and 1 s optical memory

Shuo Shen, Xiwei Xu, Yanhong Xiao

Published Jun 27, 2014• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

Using atomic motion to coherently spread light information stored in atoms provides a means to manipulate atom-light interactions. We demonstrate light splitting with moving atoms in a paraffin-coated vapor cell by using phase-sensitive degenerate four-wave mixing, or self-rotation. This scheme amplifies the slow light beam splitter signal, and, in the meantime, maintains the phase coherence between the beam-splitter channels. Light storage efficiency in the beam-splitting channel can also be enhanced. Furthermore, we demonstrate an optical memory exceeding 1 s, taking advantage of the gain from self-rotation and an atomic coherence composed of a fast-decaying part and a slow-decaying part. These results should find applications in optical memory, optical routers, and atomic coherence control.

DOI
10.1117/1.oe.53.10.102703

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•Jan 1, 2015•0 citations
Using atomic motion to coherently spread light information stored in atoms provides a means to manipulate atom-light interactions. We demonstrate light splitting with moving atoms in a paraffin-coated vapor cell by using phase-sensitive degenerate four-wave mixing, or self-rotation. This scheme amplifies the slow light beam splitter signal, and, in the meantime, maintains the phase coherence between the beam-splitter channels. Light storage efficiency in the beam-splitting channel can also be enhanced. Furthermore, we demonstrate an optical memory exceeding 1 s, taking advantage of the gain from self-rotation and an atomic coherence composed of a fast-decaying part and a slow-decaying part. These results should find applications in optical memory, optical routers, and atomic coherence control.
Using atomic motion to coherently spread light information stored in atoms provides a novel means to manipulate atom-light interactions. We demonstrate light splitting with moving atoms in a paraffin coated vapor cell, by using phase sensitive degenerate four wave mixing, or self-rotation. This scheme amplifies the beam splitter signal, and in the meantime maintains the phase coherence between the beam splitter channels. Light storage efficiency in the beam-splitting channel can be also enhanced. Such an amplified beam splitter should have applications in optical memory, optical routers and atomic coherence control.
We demonstrate a slow light beam splitter using rapid coherence transport in a wall-coated atomic vapor cell. We show that particles undergoing random and undirected classical motion can mediate coherent interactions between two or more optical modes. Coherence, written into atoms via electromagnetically induced transparency using an input optical signal at one transverse position, spreads out via ballistic atomic motion, is preserved by an antirelaxation wall coating, and is then retrieved in outgoing slow light signals in both the input channel and a spatially-separated second channel. The splitting ratio between the two output channels can be tuned by adjusting the laser power. The slow light beam splitter may improve quantum repeater performance and be useful as an all-optical dynamically reconfigurable router.
We propose a scheme to realize slow-light soliton beam splitters by using a tripod-type four-level atomic system. We show that optical solitons, which have ultraslow propagation velocity and ultralow generation power, can be generated in the system via electromagnetically induced transparency and can be stored and retrieved with high efficiency and fidelity. In particular, a nonlinear beam splitter that splits one optical soliton into two or more ones can be obtained by switching on and off of two or more control laser fields subsequently. The results reported here open a route not only for active manipulation of nonlinear optical pulses in multistate quantum systems but also for promising applications in optical information processing and transmission.
We demonstrate a coherent and dynamic beam splitter based on light storage in cold atoms. An input weak laser pulse is first stored in a cold atom ensemble via electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). A set of counter-propagating control fields, applied at a later time, retrieves the stored pulse into two output spatial modes. The high visibility interference between the two output pulses clearly demonstrates that the beam splitting process is coherent. Furthermore, by manipulating the control lasers, it is possible to dynamically control the storage time, the power splitting ratio, the relative phase, and the optical frequencies of the output pulses. With further improvements, the active beam splitter demonstrated in this work might have applications in photonic photonic quantum information and in all-optical information processing.
This thesis presents progress towards two complementary goals. The first part discusses our aim of building high-efficiency quantum memories for quantum optical states and exploring the potential of the memory for performing operations as well as for passive storage. The second part presents our work towards developing a compact source of quantum light by fabricating optical resonators from non-linear optical crystals. Our high-efficiency memories operate by storing the information carried by a weak laser field in the coherence between the hyperfine-split electronic energy levels in a vapour of atomic rubidium. We analyse the performance of a three-level gradient echo memory protocol that is used to store and retrieve optical information from the atomic coherence using an off-resonant Raman transition. Using a warm rubidium vapour, we find that the memory preserves the quantum state of the input light better than any classical means of storage could achieve. We also present results showing that trapped, cold atomic vapours provide an increased storage lifetime and analyse the contribution that four-wave-mixing makes to the retrieved light. Both the warm- and cold-atom implementations of the memory are shown to store and recall light with over 80% efficiency. We also present a number of extensions to the basic memory protocol. We demonstrate that the light-atom coupling can be controlled by the bright coupling field that is used to complete the Raman transition. This control is used to perform a beam-splitting operations between two optical pulses that are separated in time. Using frequency-multiplexed states, we show that beam-splitting operations are also possible between optical modes that are separated in frequency. This operation can be extended to perform arbitrary operations by using a series of memories. Finally, we present a high-fidelity memory for dual-rail q-bits encoded across two frequency modes. The resonators that were fabricated to explore compact sources of quantum light demonstrated many of the properties that are required to obtain the stable operation of a quantum source. We demonstrated that non-linear optical crystals can be machined into monolithic resonators that use total internal reflections to confine light. Two geometries were tested, whispering gallery resonators and square travelling wave cavities. Because both types of resonators use total internal reflection instead of dielectric coatings, they feature very low loss rates. Lithium niobate resonators of both types exhibited cavity decay rates that were dominated by bulk absorption in the crystal. The resonators were shown to be frequency tunable using an applied voltage and could be coupled to free-space modes with a tunable coupling rate. We present preliminary results of non-linear frequency conversion in the resonators. We also investigated calcium fluoride and magnesium fluoride resonators for use as high-finesse reference cavities. We report a finesse of 5000 in a calcium fluoride whispering gallery resonator. A square calcium fluoride monolithic resonator was also produce to have a low insertion loss when coupled to a Gaussian free-space mode. We demonstrate a power coupling efficiency of 94% to that resonator. We also present a proposal to use a square lithium niobate resonator as a tunable coupler for a high-finesse calcium fluoride whispering gallery resonator. The coupled resonator system could be used as a compact high-efficiency optical quantum memory.