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New Journal of Physics

Rephasing halted photon echoes using controlled optical deshelving

Joonseong Hahn, Byoung Seung HAM

Published Sep 7, 2011• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Quantum coherence control of two-pulse photon echoes has been demonstrated for a rephasing halt, resulting in storage-time extension using atom phase-controlled optical deshelving (optical locking) in a backward propagation scheme for the additional benefit of echo intensity enhancement. Compared with conventional forward two-pulse photon echoes, the backward two-pulse photon echo efficiency is enhanced by 15-fold even in a dilute sample, and the storage time is lengthened by spin dephasing time accelerated by spin inhomogeneous broadening. The mechanism of delayed photon echoes via optical locking is due to the temporal hold of the rephasing process by coherent population transfer to a robust spin state.

DOI
10.1088/1367-2630/13/9/093011

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Quantum coherence control of two-pulse photon echoes has been demonstrated for a rephasing halt, resulting in storage-time extension using atom phase-controlled optical deshelving (optical locking) in a backward propagation scheme for the additional benefit of echo intensity enhancement. Compared with conventional forward two-pulse photon echoes, the backward two-pulse photon echo efficiency is enhanced by 15-fold even in a dilute sample, and the storage time is lengthened by spin dephasing time accelerated by spin inhomogeneous broadening. The mechanism of delayed photon echoes via optical locking is due to the temporal hold of the rephasing process by coherent population transfer to a robust spin state.
A photon echo storage-time extension protocol is presented by using a phase locking method in a three-level backward propagation scheme, where phase locking serves as a conditional stopper of the rephasing process in conventional two-pulse photon echoes. The backward propagation scheme solves the critical problems of extremely low retrieval efficiency and pi rephasing pulse-caused spontaneous emission noise in photon echo based quantum memories. The physics of the storage time extension lies in the imminent population transfer from the excited state to an auxiliary spin state by a phase locking control pulse. We numerically demonstrate that the storage time is lengthened by spin dephasing time.
Using on-demand coherence conversion via optical locking, a dynamic coherent control of the collective atom phase has been demonstrated for longer photon storage beyond the critical constraint of spin phase decay time, where the storage time can be extended up to hours in a rare-earth-doped solid. Coherent transient phenomena such as photon echoes have been investigated for frozen phase decay via coherent population transfer using a simple deshelving optical pulse pair. Unlike the rephasing halt applied to two-pulse photon echoes, where optical decoherence is accelerated by spin inhomogeneous broadening, a completely atom phase-locked coherence conversion has been observed in three-pulse photon echoes, resulting in spin dephasing-free coherence control. Here, the mechanism of the atom phase-locked coherence conversion via optical locking has been investigated in a solid medium whose optical transition is imperfect, where partial coherence is lost via optical depth-dependent imperfect population transfer. The relationship between coherence loss and optical depth is analyzed, where nearly perfect photon echo efficiency can be obtained for ultralong photon storage in an optically thick medium.
Rephasing in photon echoes is a fundamental mechanism of retrieving optical information stored in a collective ensemble of atoms or ions. With an extremely weak quantum optical data, population inversion by the rephasing process is inevitable resulting in serious quantum noise. Here, an inversion-free rephasing method in photon echoes is presented by using deshelving-based atom phase control. The present method makes photon echoes directly applicable to quantum memories with benefits of extended photon storage time and nearly perfect retrieval efficiency. In this revised version only the rephasing pulse propagation direction is corrected to make a silent echo of E1 in Fig. 1.
Lengthening of photon storage time has been an important issue in quantum memories for long distance quantum communications utilizing quantum repeaters. Atom population transfer into an auxiliary spin state has been adapted to increase photon storage time of photon echoes. In this population transfer process phase shift to the collective atoms is inevitable, where the phase recovery condition must be multiple of 2pi to satisfy rephasing mechanism. Recent adaptation of the population transfer method to atomic frequency comb (AFC) echoes [Afzelius et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 104, 040503 (2010)], where the population transfer method is originated in a controlled reversible inhomogeneous broadening technique [Moiseev and Kroll, Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 173601 (2001)], however, shows contradictory phenomenon violating the phase recovery condition. This contradiction in AFC is reviewed as a general case of optical locking applied to a dilute medium for an optical depth-dependent coherence leakage resulting in partial retrieval efficiency.