Quantum information processing promises to have transformative impacts on information and communication science and technology. Photonic implementation of quantum information processing is among successful candidates for implementation of quantum computation and is an essential part of quantum communication. Linear optical quantum computation, specifically the KLM scheme, and quantum repeaters are prominent candidates for practical photonic quantum computation and long-distance quantum communication. Quantum memories for photons are key elements for any practical implementation of these schemes. Practical quantum memories require theoretical and experimental investigations into quantum memory protocols and physical systems for implementations. The present thesis is focused on studying new approaches toward practical solid-state based quantum memories. First, I present a proposal for a new quantum memory protocol called the controllable-dipole quantum memory. It represents a protocol, in a two-level system, without any optical control that is shown to be equivalent to the Raman type-quantum memory. Then I include our studies on the quantum memory based on the refractive index modulation of the host medium. It is shown that it can resemble the gradient echo quantum memory without a spatial gradient in the external field. These two protocols can be implemented in rare-earth doped crystals. With regards to using new physical systems, I present a proposal based on nitrogen vacancy centers. This may pave the way toward micron-scale on-chip quantum memories that may contribute to the implementation of integrated quantum photonics. Finally, I studied the precision requirements for the spin echo technique. This technique is necessary to extend the storage time in solid-state quantum memories, in which the coherence times are limited by spin inhomogeneous broadening.
Quantum information processing promises to have transformative impacts on information and communication science and technology. Photonic implementation of quantum information processing is among successful candidates for implementation of quantum computation and is an essential part of quantum communication. Linear optical quantum computation, specifically the KLM scheme, and quantum repeaters are prominent candidates for practical photonic quantum computation and long-distance quantum communication. Quantum memories for photons are key elements for any practical implementation of these schemes. Practical quantum memories require theoretical and experimental investigations into quantum memory protocols and physical systems for implementations. The present thesis is focused on studying new approaches toward practical solid-state based quantum memories. First, I present a proposal for a new quantum memory protocol called the controllable-dipole quantum memory. It represents a protocol, in a two-level system, without any optical control that is shown to be equivalent to the Raman type-quantum memory. Then I include our studies on the quantum memory based on the refractive index modulation of the host medium. It is shown that it can resemble the gradient echo quantum memory without a spatial gradient in the external field. These two protocols can be implemented in rare-earth doped crystals. With regards to using new physical systems, I present a proposal based on nitrogen vacancy centers. This may pave the way toward micron-scale on-chip quantum memories that may contribute to the implementation of integrated quantum photonics. Finally, I studied the precision requirements for the spin echo technique. This technique is necessary to extend the storage time in solid-state quantum memories, in which the coherence times are limited by spin inhomogeneous broadening.
This thesis describes experiments aimed at developing a key component in applications such as quantum networks and long-distance quantum communication systems: quantum memories. Quantum memories for light using photon-echo and coherent rephrasing techniques have been developed. The work is carried out on rare-earth-ion-doped inorganic crystals. Several properties are associated with these crystals such as long coherence times and long-lived ground state sublevels that are particularly interesting in connection applications in the area of quantum information science. It is demonstrated the preparation of optical inhomogeneous absorption profiles such that the light only interacts with a specific transition at a selected frequency. Narrow absorbing structures with widths of <100 kHz have been prepared with no absorption in the surrounding spectral interval. Most of the experiments were carried out using Pr3+:Y2SiO5. However, in our search for suitable a Λ-system in the material under consideration, we also performed spectral hole-burning spectroscopy in Nd:Y2SiVO4. As part of the search for host materials for Pr, Pr:La2(WO4)3 crystal was characterized using a variety of methods, such as, hole burning and photon-echoes. Electromagnetically induced transparency was also observed in this crystal. The most important criteria for evaluating quantum memory performance and the most important physical requirements are discussed. After investigating the standard photon echo techniques and controlled reversible inhomogeneous broadening (CRIB) for quantum state storage, we considered an efficient multimode quantum memory protocol; the atomic frequency comb (AFC) protocol. Combs with peaks of widths 100-300 kHz and an optical depth of~ 10 were created by optical pumping inside an emptied region of the inhomogeneous profile of Pr3+:Y2SiO5, allowing us to improve the efficiency of light storage. Light storage combining a photon-echo technique based on an AFC and spin-wave storage have been demonstrated, and an experimental AFC scheme for the storage of weak coherent light pulses in Pr3+:Y2SiO5 is presented. Finally, we have investigated superradiance and slow light effects. Both these effects occur in the high optical depth regime and can influence the memory performance. Under certain conditions superradiance results in the immediate re-emission of the stored light in a single burst of coherent radiation, and inside spectrally structured materials, slow light effects may result when storage is performed.
Over the past decade, quantum computers have emerged as a promising technology to enable transformational advances in information processing and communication and solve problems that are intractable to classical computers. While there is great promise in linking quantum computers together over long distances via quantum channels, these technologies are still under development. Solid-state emitters with coherent spin-photon interfaces, long spin lifetimes, and narrow optical transitions are a leading platform for use as quantum memories in networked quantum repeaters. However, while such emitters have already enabled advanced quantum networking demonstrations in laboratory settings, applying these devices as useful memory devices at scale is a key outstanding challenge. In this thesis, we experimentally investigate solid-state quantum memories for quantum information applications. First, we develop experimental techniques to characterize solid-state emitters with high throughput, enabling both better understanding of the distribution of emitter properties and improved feedback on material preparation and device fabrication. Next, we implement quantum frequency conversion to create a coherent spin-photon interface between silicon-vacancy centers in diamond and optical photons in the low-loss telecom band. Finally, we investigate color centers in other engineering materials, including silicon and silicon carbide, to better understand the fundamental trade space of requirements for solid-state hosts. Together, these efforts represent a significant advance in creating, controlling, and deploying telecom-compatible spin interfaces, paving the way for memory-enabled quantum repeaters.
This thesis demonstrates an efficient quantum memory that for the first time preserves more quantum information than it loses. Beyond this, it describes how even higher efficiency may be realised without sacrificing the other performance characteristics that are required for a practical device. A quantum memory is a device to store and recall the quantum state of light. Such a memory will be required for most applications of the emerging field of quantum information. The closest practical application is quantum repeaters for long distance encryption. A more distant target is quantum computing. Yet demonstrations of quantum memory to date fall far short of the performance required for repeaters, and further short of that for quantum computing. For these applications, high performance will be required in terms of 3 parameters: long storage time, high efficiency, and a large mode-capacity. Prior to this work, the storage time was the only paramter to have been demonstrated near the required level[1], and that only in a classical regime. The primary result of this thesis is to demonst rate a memory with an efficiency close the required level (70% is measured), and confirm its quantum nature with noise measurements. This represents the first quantum memory with efficiency greater than 50% and the first to operate unconditionally above the "no-cloning limit". The demonstration used the same storage medium as for the previous long-term storage experiment (Pr{u00B3}{u207A}:Y{u2082}Si0{u2085} (PrYSO)), and could in principle reach the same long storage times. The technique used is an optical "gradient echo", an optical equivalent to the long studied gradient echo technique used in Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR). Aside from it's practicality for demonstrations, a gradient-echo also offers a powerful handle for manipulating stored light. However it is more complex than related memory techniques because it employs a spatially-varying medium. This becomes crucial when the optical depth (and memory efficiency) is increased; propagation effects mean the light is stored very differently than in other techniques. A simple linear-response model is used to gain insight into this high optical depth regime. As a result, some new properties are identified which may increase the efficiency in practical circumstances and improve flexibility. Of particular note, it's found that the space-dependence can be used to hide one narrow transition with another. This allows the somewhat unintuitive notion that a light pulse can fully traverse a medium without exciting a transition that it is resonant with. The spectral-hiding property has promise to overcome the problem with simultaneously acheiving all three parameters required for quantum memories. The problem is related to the preparation of available rare-earth ion doped materials. To acheive high efficiency and storage times, these require spectral holeburning whose bandwidth is limited by the splittings of spin levels. Methods exist to create high bandwidth delays lines with holeburning[2], but they cannot be efficient or long-lived. By utilising the spectral-hiding property of the gradient echo, methods to overcome this limitation are described for the first time.
Quantum communication founds on the possibility to encode quantum states into photons and allows, for instance, the provable secure distribution of encryption keys. Despite a lot of progress during the past two decades, quantum communication still faces a distance barrier, which can be overcome by quantum repeaters whose currently most challenging ingredient is a memory for quantum states of light. In addition to robustness and ease of use, the requirements for such a quantum memory include high fidelity quantum state storage and the preservation of entanglement, sufficiently long storage time with on-demand recall, high efficiency, large bandwidth, and high multimode capacity. Six years ago, some of these properties had already been demonstrated using atomic vapor. However, practical solid-state memories were virtually unexplored in view of quantum state storage. The main goal of this thesis was to realize a solid-state quantum memory for light with emphasis on meeting requirements for long distance quantum communication. First, we identified a potential material candidate, a thulium doped lithium niobate waveguide, and conducted spectroscopic investigations to assess its suitability for quantum state storage using a photon-echo type approach. Next, we demonstrated that our storage device is suitable for high fidelity quantum state storage and for the storage of photonic entanglement, and that its large spectral multimode capacity allows for on-demand selective recall in conjunction with standard spectral filters and frequency shifters. In addition, by performing two-photon interference experiments and Bell-State measurements, we found that our memory preserves not only quantum information, but, more generally, the entire photonic wave function, which further confirms its suitability for quantum repeaters as well as for linear optics quantum computers. Finally, we showed that our integrated device also allows for general temporal and spectral manipulation of individual quantum optical pulses, which paves the way towards on-chip quantum optical processors. While more work remains to be done, in particular to improve memory efficiency and storage time, the large number of achievements, together with known ways to overcome the remaining obstacles, makes us confident that a quantum memory suitable for quantum repeaters will soon be built.
The ability of storing and retrieving quantum states of light is an important experimental challenge in quantum information science. A powerful quantum memory for light is required in a quantum repeater, which would allow long distance (>500km) quantum communications. To be implemented in such application, the quantum memory must allow on-demand readout, with high fidelity and efficiency, and a long storage time. Additionally a multimode capacity (for temporal or spatial modes) would allow multiplexing. Our approaches focus on rare-earth doped crystals, i.e. solid state quantum memory. I present, in this work, our contributions for a solid-state quantum storage, with good performances in every criteria. In particular, I present the preservation of quantum entanglement during the storage, which paves the way for the implementation of quantum memories in quantum repeaters.
Interaction of quantum radiation with multi-particle ensembles has sparked off intense research efforts during the past decade. Emblematic of this field is the quantum memory scheme, where a quantum state of light is mapped onto an ensemble of atoms and then recovered in its original shape. While opening new access to the basics of light–atom interaction, quantum memory also appears as a key element for information processing applications, such as linear optics quantum computation and long-distance quantum communication via quantum repeaters. Not surprisingly, it is far from trivial to practically recover a stored quantum state of light and, although impressive progress has already been accomplished, researchers are still struggling to reach this ambitious objective. This special issue provides an account of the state-of-the-art in a fast-moving research area that makes physicists, engineers and chemists work together at the forefront of their discipline, involving quantum fields and atoms in different media, magnetic resonance techniques and material science. Various strategies have been considered to store and retrieve quantum light. The explored designs belong to three main—while still overlapping—classes. In architectures derived from photon echo, information is mapped over the spectral components of inhomogeneously broadened absorption bands, such as those encountered in rare earth ion doped crystals and atomic gases in external gradient magnetic field. Protocols based on electromagnetic induced transparency also rely on resonant excitation and are ideally suited to the homogeneous absorption lines offered by laser cooled atomic clouds or ion Coulomb crystals. Finally off-resonance approaches are illustrated by Faraday and Raman processes. Coupling with an optical cavity may enhance the storage process, even for negligibly small atom number. Multiple scattering is also proposed as a way to enlarge the quantum interaction distance of light with matter. The quest for higher efficiency, better fidelity, broader bandwidth, multimode capacity and longer storage lifetime is pursued in all those approaches, as shown in this special issue. The improvement of quantum memory operation specifically requires in-depth study and control of numerous physical processes leading to atomic decoherence. The present issue reflects the development of rare earth ion doped matrices offering long lifetime superposition states, either as bulk crystals or as optical waveguides. The need for quantum sources and high efficiency detectors at the single photon level is also illustrated. Several papers address the networking of quantum memories either in long-haul cryptography or in the prospect of quantum processing. In this context, much attention has been paid recently to interfacing quantum light with superconducting qubits and with nitrogen-vacancy centers in diamond. Finally, the quantum interfacing of light with matter raises questions on entanglement. The last two papers are devoted to the generation of entanglement by dissipative processes. It is shown that long lifetime entanglement may be built in this way. We hope this special issue will help readers to become familiar with the exciting field of ensemble-based quantum memories and will stimulate them to bring deeper insights and new ideas to this area.