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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Configurable Beam Splitting of Single Photon in Cold Atoms

Yefeng Mei, Xianxin Guo, Shengwang Du

Published Jan 1, 2019• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We demonstrate a dynamically configurable beam splitter (BS) for single photon wavepacket via electromagnetically-induced-transparency storage in cold atoms. This quantum-memory based controllable BS may have applications in a quantum information processing network.
DOI
10.1364/cleo_qels.2019.fm2a.2

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We report the demonstration of a configurable coherent quantum-memory-based beam splitter (BS) for a single-photon wave packet making use of laser-cooled 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb atoms and electromagnetically induced transparency. The single-photon wave packet is converted (stored) into a collective atomic spin state and later retrieved (split) into two nearly opposing directions. The storage time, beam-splitting ratio, and relative phase are configurable and can be dynamically controlled. We experimentally confirm that such a BS preserves the quantum particle nature of the single photon and the coherence between the two split wave packets of the single photon.
We demonstrate a coherent and dynamic beam splitter based on light storage in cold atoms. An input weak laser pulse is first stored in a cold atom ensemble via electromagnetically-induced transparency (EIT). A set of counter-propagating control fields, applied at a later time, retrieves the stored pulse into two output spatial modes. The high visibility interference between the two output pulses clearly demonstrates that the beam splitting process is coherent. Furthermore, by manipulating the control lasers, it is possible to dynamically control the storage time, the power splitting ratio, the relative phase, and the optical frequencies of the output pulses. With further improvements, the active beam splitter demonstrated in this work might have applications in photonic photonic quantum information and in all-optical information processing.
Quantum memories are vital to the scalability of photonic quantum information processing (PQIP), since the storage of photons enables repeat-until-success strategies. On the other hand, the key element of all PQIP architectures is the beam splitter, which allows us to coherently couple optical modes. Here, we show how to combine these crucial functionalities by addressing a Raman quantum memory with multiple control pulses. The result is a coherent optical storage device with an extremely large time bandwidth product, that functions as an array of dynamically configurable beam splitters, and that can be read out with arbitrarily high efficiency. Networks of such devices would allow fully scalable PQIP, with applications in quantum computation, long distance quantum communications and quantum metrology.
With electromagnetically induced transmission (EIT), an optical field can be converted into collective atomic excitation and stored in the atomic medium through switching off the strong-coupling field adiabatically. By varying the power of the coupling pulse, we can control the ratio between the transmitted optical field and the stored atomic mode. We use a cloud of cold 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb atoms prepared in magneto-optical trap as the experimental platform. Based on a model of EIT dark-state polariton, we consider the real case where the atomic medium has a finite length. The theoretical calculation gives numerical results that agree well with the experimental data. The results show that the ratio can be changed approximately from 0 to 100%, when the maximum power of the coupling pulse (the pulse length is 100 ns) varies from 0 to 20 mW, in the cold atomic ensemble with an optical depth of 40. This process can be used to achieve an atom-light hybrid beam splitter with tunable splitting ratio and thus find potential application in interferometric measurement and quantum information processing.
An efficient quantum storage is highly desired for quantum information processing. As indicated by certain applications, a universal quantum storage is required to have a storage efficiency above 50% to beat the no-cloning limit. Although significant progress has been achieved in improving various quantum storage, the best storage efficiency of single photons is still below this criteria. By integrating a highly controllable single photon source with an optimized quantum storage, here we demonstrate an optical storage of single photons with storage efficiency of 65% in a cold atomic ensemble based on electromagnetically induced transparency. Meanwhile, the nonclassical characteristics of our storage are verified through the well-maintained nonclassical and single photon nature of the retrieved single photons.