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Storage of telecom photons in a doped crystal interfaced via frequency up-conversion

Nicolas Maring, Kutlu Kutluer, Joachim Cohen, Matteo Cristiani, Margherita Mazzera, Patrick M. Ledingham, Hugues de Riedmatten

Published Jul 11, 2014• 0 citations
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Abstract

We report on an experiment demonstrating storage of single-photonlevel light pulses at telecommunication wavelength by frequency up-converting them to the visible range to be resonant with a solid-state optical memory based on a Pr:Y2SiO5 crystal. We convert the telecom photons at 1570 nm to 606 nm using a periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate nonlinear waveguide. The maximum device efficiency is inferred to be η dev = 22±1% with a signal to noise ratio exceeding 1 for single-photon-level pulses with durations of up to 560 ns. The converted light is then stored in the crystal using the atomic frequency comb scheme with storage and retrieval efficiencies exceeding ηAFC = 20% for predetermined storage times of up to 5μs. The retrieved light is time delayed from the noisy conversion process allowing us to measure a signal to noise ratio exceeding 100 with telecom single-photon-level inputs. These results represent the first demonstration of single-photon-level optical storage interfaced with frequency up-conversion. PACS numbers: 03.67.Hk,42.50.Gy,42.50.Md,42.65.Wi

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We report on an experiment demonstrating storage of single-photonlevel light pulses at telecommunication wavelength by frequency up-converting them to the visible range to be resonant with a solid-state optical memory based on a Pr:Y2SiO5 crystal. We convert the telecom photons at 1570 nm to 606 nm using a periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate nonlinear waveguide. The maximum device efficiency is inferred to be η dev = 22±1% with a signal to noise ratio exceeding 1 for single-photon-level pulses with durations of up to 560 ns. The converted light is then stored in the crystal using the atomic frequency comb scheme with storage and retrieval efficiencies exceeding ηAFC = 20% for predetermined storage times of up to 5μs. The retrieved light is time delayed from the noisy conversion process allowing us to measure a signal to noise ratio exceeding 100 with telecom single-photon-level inputs. These results represent the first demonstration of single-photon-level optical storage interfaced with frequency up-conversion. PACS numbers: 03.67.Hk,42.50.Gy,42.50.Md,42.65.Wi
We report on an experiment that demonstrates the frequency up-conversion of telecommunication wavelength single-photon-level pulses to be resonant with a : crystal. We convert the telecom photons at to using a periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate nonlinear waveguide. The maximum device efficiency (which includes all optical loss) is inferred to be (internal efficiency ) with a signal to noise ratio exceeding 1 for single-photon-level pulses with durations of up to 560 ns. The converted light is then stored in the crystal using the atomic frequency comb scheme with storage and retrieval efficiencies exceeding for predetermined storage times of up to . The retrieved light is time delayed from the noisy conversion process allowing us to measure a signal to noise ratio exceeding 100 with telecom single-photon-level inputs. These results represent the first demonstration of single-photon-level optical storage interfaced with frequency up-conversion.
We report on an experiment that demonstrates the frequency up-conversion of telecommunication wavelength single-photon-level pulses to be resonant with a Pr3+\mathrm{Pr}^{3+}Pr3+:Y2SiO5\mathrm{Y}_2\mathrm{Si}\mathrm{O}_5Y2​SiO5​ crystal. We convert the telecom photons at 1570 nm1570\,\mathrm{nm}1570nm to 606 nm606\,\mathrm{nm}606nm using a periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate nonlinear waveguide. The maximum device efficiency (which includes all optical loss) is inferred to be ηdevmax=22±1 η_{\mathrm{dev}}^{\mathrm{max}} = 22 \pm 1\,%ηdevmax​=22±1 (internal efficiency ηint=75±8 η_{\mathrm{int}} = 75\pm8\,%ηint​=75±8) with a signal to noise ratio exceeding 1 for single-photon-level pulses with durations of up to 560 \,ns. The converted light is then stored in the crystal using the atomic frequency comb scheme with storage and retrieval efficiencies exceeding ηAFC=20 η_{\mathrm{AFC}} = 20\,%ηAFC​=20 for predetermined storage times of up to 5 μs5\,μ\mathrm{s}5μs. The retrieved light is time delayed from the noisy conversion process allowing us to measure a signal to noise ratio exceeding 100 with telecom single-photon-level inputs. These results represent the first demonstration of single-photon-level optical storage interfaced with frequency up-conversion.
We report an experiment demonstrating quantum frequency conversion of weak light pulses compatible with atomic quantum memories to telecommunication wavelengths. We use a PPLN nonlinear waveguide to convert weak coherent states at the single photon level with a duration of 30 ns from a wavelength of 780 nm to 1552 nm. We measure a maximal waveguide internal (external) conversion efficiency η(int) = 0.41 (η(ext) = 0.25), and we show that the signal to noise ratio (SNR) is good enough to reduce the input photon number below 1. In addition, we show that the noise generated by the pump beam in the crystal is proportional to the spectral bandwidth of the device, suggesting that narrower filtering could significantly increase the SNR. Finally, we demonstrate that the quantum frequency converter can operate in the quantum regime by converting a time-bin qubit and measuring the qubit fidelity after conversion.
We report on quantum frequency conversion of memory-compatible narrow-bandwidth photons at 606 nm to the telecom C-band at 1552 \,nm. The 200 \,ns long photons, compatible with Praseodymium-based solid-state quantum memories are frequency converted using a single-step difference frequency generation process in a periodically poled Lithium Niobate waveguide. We characterize the noise processes involved in the conversion and by applying strong spectral filtering of the noise, we demonstrate high signal-to-noise ratio conversion at the single photon level (SNR$\,>\,100forameaninputphotonnumberperpulseof1).Wefinallyobservethatamemorycompatibleheraldedsinglephotonwithabandwidthof1.8100 for a mean input photon number per pulse of 1). We finally observe that a memory compatible heralded single photon with a bandwidth of 1.8100forameaninputphotonnumberperpulseof1).Wefinallyobservethatamemorycompatibleheraldedsinglephotonwithabandwidthof1.8\,$MHz, obtained from a spontaneous parametric down conversion pair source, still shows a strong non-classical behavior after conversion. We first demonstrate that correlations between heralding and converted heralded photons stay in the non-classical regime. Moreover, we measured the heralded autocorrelation function of the heralded photon using the converter device as a frequency-domain beam splitter, yielding a value of 0.19±0.070.19\pm0.070.19±0.07. The presented work represents a step towards the connection of several quantum memory systems emitting narrow-band visible photons to the telecommunication wavelengths.
We demonstrate experimentally the storage and retrieval of weak coherent light fields at telecommunication wavelengths in a solid. Light pulses at the single photon level are stored for a time up to 600 ns in an erbium-doped Y2SiO5 crystal at 2.6 K and retrieved on demand. The memory is based on photon echoes with controlled reversible inhomogeneous broadening, which is realized here for the first time at the single photon level. This is implemented with an external field gradient using the linear Stark effect. This experiment demonstrates the feasibility of a solid-state quantum memory for single photons at telecommunication wavelengths, which would represent an important resource in quantum information science.
Quantum frequency conversion is a widely used technique to interface atomic systems with the telecom band in order to facilitate propagation over longer distances in fiber. Here, we demonstrate the difference-frequency conversion from 606 nm to 1552 nm of microsecond-long weak coherent pulses at the single-photon level compatible with Pr\mathrm{Pr}Pr3+{}^{3+}3+:Y\mathrm{Y}Y2{}_{2}2​SiO\mathrm{Si}\mathrm{O}SiO5{}_{5}5​ quantum memories, with a high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). We use a single-step difference-frequency-generation process with a continuous-wave pump at 994 nm in a periodically poled lithium niobate (MgO\mathrm{Mg}\mathrm{O}MgO:ppLN) waveguide and ultranarrow spectral filtering down to a bandwidth of 12.5 MHz. With this setup, we achieve the conversion of weak coherent pulses of duration up to 13.6 \textmu{}s with a device efficiency of about 25 % and an SNR >460 for 10-$\text{\ensuremath{\mu}}\mathrm{s}$-long pulses containing one photon on average. This SNR is large enough to enable a high-fidelity conversion of qubits emitted from an emissive quantum memory based on Pr\mathrm{Pr}Pr3+{}^{3+}3+:Y\mathrm{Y}Y2{}_{2}2​SiO\mathrm{Si}\mathrm{O}SiO5{}_{5}5​ and to realize an interface with quantum processing nodes based on narrow-linewidth cavity-enhanced trapped ions.