One of the most important applications of quantum computing is to crack classical cryptosystem. Previous studies showed that the number of qubits required to crack the widely used 2048-bit RSA cipher is about 20 million, which is far beyond the current technology for quantum computing. Recently, É. Gouzien and N. Sangouard of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission proposed a quantum computing architecture based on a two-dimensional grid of superconducting qubits and a three-dimensional multimode quantum memory. They showed that only 13k qubits are required to crack a 2048-bit RSA integer with the help of a long-lived quantum memory with 28 million spatial modes and 45 temporal modes. Their results clearly demonstrate the values of quantum memories in quantum computing and provide an alternative approach for building practically useful quantum computers. Quantum computers require quantum memories to work at microwave band, which remains an outstanding challenge. Based on a detailed analysis of atomic radiations during the quantum storage process, we recently proposed a noiseless-photon-echo protocol which can successfully eliminate the spontaneous emission noise in photon echoes. This protocol is expected to further enable microwave quantum storage and the construction of “quantum memory” quantum computers.
One of the most important applications of quantum computing is to crack classical cryptosystem. Previous studies showed that the number of qubits required to crack the widely used 2048-bit RSA cipher is about 20 million, which is far beyond the current technology for quantum computing. Recently, É. Gouzien and N. Sangouard of the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission proposed a quantum computing architecture based on a two-dimensional grid of superconducting qubits and a three-dimensional multimode quantum memory. They showed that only 13k qubits are required to crack a 2048-bit RSA integer with the help of a long-lived quantum memory with 28 million spatial modes and 45 temporal modes. Their results clearly demonstrate the values of quantum memories in quantum computing and provide an alternative approach for building practically useful quantum computers. Quantum computers require quantum memories to work at microwave band, which remains an outstanding challenge. Based on a detailed analysis of atomic radiations during the quantum storage process, we recently proposed a noiseless-photon-echo protocol which can successfully eliminate the spontaneous emission noise in photon echoes. This protocol is expected to further enable microwave quantum storage and the construction of “quantum memory” quantum computers.
This dissertation is devoted to the development of quantum memories for light. Quantum memory is an important part of future long-distance quantum fiber networks and quantum processing. Quantum memory is required to be efficient, multimode, noise free, scalable, and should be able to provide long storage times for practical applications in quantum communications and beyond. Here I concentrate on solving particular problems of different quantum protocols and find ways for extending the performance of memories and adding new capabilities. I theoretically show that an array of whispering-gallery resonators is capable of being an efficient and noise-free optical memory with an adjustable storage time. The potential for on-chip realization at room temperature makes the scheme attractive for easy implementation. The effect of Raman scattering in echo memory was evaluated experimentally and theoretically. The noise performance of gradient echo memory in Λ configuration proves, that the developed theory is in a good agreement with an experiment. I proposed a mechanism for extending the bandwidth of impedance-matched memories via a white-light cavity effect. The introduced additional dispersion compensates a bandwidth decrease induced by the cavity and hence increases the spectral zone of impedance matching. Theoretically the scheme allows to increase the bandwidth of high efficient storage (>90%) several times without adding extra noise. Finally, I have proposed an architecture of quantum random-access memory for time-bin photons. The architecture consists from a memory unit and a strongly coupled three-level atom. Both of them are placed in their own cavities, which are coupled to each other. The protocol allows to achieve quantum addressing of quantum information stored in the memory with only a single control unit. This is useful for numerous tasks in quantum machine learning.
Abstract Photon echo is a fundamental tool for the manipulation of electromagnetic fields. Unavoidable spontaneous emission noise is generated in this process due to the strong rephasing pulse, which limits the achievable signal-to-noise ratio and represents a fundamental obstacle towards their applications in the quantum regime. Here we propose a noiseless photon-echo protocol based on a four-level atomic system. We implement this protocol in a Eu3+:Y2SiO5 crystal to serve as an optical quantum memory. A storage fidelity of 0.952 ± 0.018 is obtained for time-bin qubits encoded with single-photon-level coherent pulses, which is far beyond the maximal fidelity achievable using the classical measure-and-prepare strategy. In this work, the demonstrated noiseless photon-echo quantum memory features spin-wave storage, easy operation and high storage fidelity, which should be easily extended to other physical systems.
Abstract Photon echo is a fundamental tool for the manipulation of electromagnetic fields. Unavoidable spontaneous emission noise is generated in this process due to the strong rephasing pulse, which limits the achievable signal-to-noise ratio and represents a fundamental obstacle towards their applications in the quantum regime. Here we propose a noiseless photon-echo protocol based on a four-level atomic system. We implement this protocol in a Eu3+:Y2SiO5 crystal to serve as an optical quantum memory. A storage fidelity of 0.952 ± 0.018 is obtained for time-bin qubits encoded with single-photon-level coherent pulses, which is far beyond the maximal fidelity achievable using the classical measure-and-prepare strategy. In this work, the demonstrated noiseless photon-echo quantum memory features spin-wave storage, easy operation and high storage fidelity, which should be easily extended to other physical systems.
Single photons are the flying qubits of choice for distributing entanglement in a quantum internet. Quantum memories embedded in quantum repeaters are crucial to overcome transmission loss and enhance the rate of quantum communication. A multimode memory can further boost the channel capacity. However, benchmarking and building a practical quantum memory that simultaneously optimizes multiple performance metrics poses two key challenges. Here, we introduce quantum interconnect rate to comprehensively quantify quantum memories, and further demonstrate a high-performance quantum memory that simultaneously integrates three essential criteria at once: large multimode capacity, high efficiency, and high fidelity. Operating on 11-dimensional spatial modes, our memory achieves a uniform efficiency exceeding 80% and qubit storage fidelities above 99%, enabling the efficient storage of high-dimensional qudits. Based on these capabilities, we estimate a distribution of 3.56 bits of quantum information over a 1000-km repeater link in one minute, highlighting a practical pathway toward scalable quantum interconnects and quantum networks.
The approaching era will require computing resources that are future proof across various domains, extending from communications, computing and sensing. It is anticipated that quantum computing will play a major role due to limitations of classical computing. A vital factor in meeting this capability is the need of a non-classical storage unit to facilitate the quantum devices. Therefore, quantum memory becomes a necessity. This paper aims to present detailed discussion on quantum memory, which would begin from fundamental concepts and would range to a more advanced level, with the ultimate goal of identifying the most suitable method for developing quantum applications. The current protocols utilized in quantum memories rely on optically driven and photon echo based techniques. The survey will deeply analyze the processes and principles involved in storing and retrieving information using these methods. It would also assess their key features, including retention time, efficiency, measurement fidelity, bandwidth, and necessary conditions. In addition, the focus would also be on studying the neoteric realms of quantum dots and the Bose Einstein condensates. The paper concludes with challenges in building quantum memories and possible future directions.
Quantum technologies, for example, quantum communication and quantum computation, promise spectacular quantum enhanced advantages beyond what can be done classically. However, quantum states, as the element of quantum technologies, are very fragile and easily get lost to the environment, and meanwhile, their generation and quantum operations are mostly probabilistic. These problems make it exponentially hard to build long-distance quantum channels for quantum communication and large quantum systems for quantum computing. Quantum memory allows quantum states to be stored and retrieved in a programmable fashion, therefore providing an elegant solution to the probabilistic nature and associated limitation by coordinating asynchronous events. In the past decades, enormous advances in quantum memory have been made by developing various storage protocols and their physical implementations, and the quantum memory has gradually evolved from the initial conceptual demonstration to a nearly practical one. Aiming at being practicable for efficient synchronisation and physical scalability, an ideal quantum memory should meet several key features known as high efficiency, low noise level, large time bandwidth product (lifetime divided by pulse duration) and operating at room temperature. Here, we present the research status and development trends of this field by introducing some typical storage protocols. Among these protocols, a room-temperature broadband quantum memory is the most attractive due to its simplicity and practicability. However, at room temperature, noise becomes dominant and is a bottleneck problem that has impeded the realization of a real room-temperature broadband quantum memory in the last decades. Recently, the noise problem has been solved in two memory protocols, i.e. FORD (far off-resonance Duan-Lukin-Cirac-Zoller) protocol and ORCA (off-resonant cascaded absorption) protocol. In this paper, the working principles, the merits and demerits of various quantum memory protocols are illustrated. Furthermore, the approaches to eliminating noise and the applications of quantum memory are summarized.