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Frontiers in Optics

Towards a Long-Lived Quantum Memory for Single Photons in Rare Earth Doped Crystals

Elizabeth A. Goldschmidt, Joffrey K. Peters, Sergey V. Polyakov, Alan L. Migdall, Sarah E. Beavan, Matthew J. Sellars

Published Jan 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have demonstrated generation, storage, and retrieval of spin-waves in a rare-earth ion-doped crystal via off-resonant spontaneous Raman scattering. Efforts are underway to push this to the single-photon regime.
DOI
10.1364/ls.2013.ltu1g.2

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Photonic quantum memories are important devices in quantum information science, and are crucial for several applications including quantum repeaters and quantum networks. Rare-earth (RE) doped crystals are promising candidates as quantum memories for light as they offer coherence properties comparable to those of atomic systems, but free of the drawbacks deriving from atomic motion. The research on RE based quantum memories has been so far mostly focused on the mapping of photonic quantum bits to optical collective excitations, but this leads to short lived and mostly pre-determined storage. However, some RE ions, as Praseodymium and Europium, exhibit the suitable energy level scheme, with three long-lived hyperfine ground states, to enable the spin-wave storage by transferring the collective optical excitations into collective spin excitations. Proof of principle spin-wave quantum memories have been reported in rare-earth doped crystals, using weak coherent states as input [1,2]. Here, I will present our recent results on the realization of multimode spin-wave quantum memories in a Praseodymium doped crystal, using non-classical input light. [1] M. Gündoğan, P. M. Ledingham, K. Kutluer, M. Mazzera and H. de Riedmatten , A solid state spin-wave quantum memory for time-bin qubits, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 230501 (2015) [2] P. Jobez, C. Laplane, N. Timoney, N. Gisin, A. Ferrier, P. Goldner, and M. Afzelius, Coherent Spin Control at the Quantum Level in an Ensemble-Based Optical Memory, Phys. Rev. Lett. 114, 230502 (2015)
Robust, long-lived optical quantum memories are important components of many quantum information and communication protocols. We demonstrate coherent generation, storage, and retrieval of excitations on a long-lived spin transition via spontaneous Raman scattering in a rare-earth ion-doped crystal. We further study the time dynamics of the optical correlations in this system. This is the first demonstration of its kind in a solid and an enabling step toward realizing a solid-state quantum repeater.
Abstract Quantum memory is a core enabling device for large-scale quantum networks, serving as the fundamental building block for quantum repeaters and transportable quantum memories. Among various physical platforms, rare-earth-ion-doped crystals stand out as one of the most promising solid-state candidates for long-lived photonic quantum memories, owing to their exceptionally long spin coherence time and their compatibility with integration. In this review, we first introduce the physical mechanisms underlying long-lived spin coherence in rare-earth systems, with particular emphasis on the zero-first-order-Zeeman transition and dynamical decoupling techniques. We then review the experimental progress in this field, highlighting three distinct lifetimes—the spin coherence time, the light storage time, and the quantum storage time—and covering experiments that have achieved hour-scale spin coherence, minute- to hour-scale light storage, and minute-scale single-photon-level quantum storage. Finally, we discuss the remaining challenges that hinder the realization of practical long-lived quantum memories, explore potential strategies to overcome these obstacles, and outline the prospects for their future applications in quantum networks.