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Scientific Reports

Comparative analysis of light storage in antirelaxation-coated and buffer-gas-filled alkali vapor cells

Marin Ðujić, Danijel Buhin, Neven Šantić, Damir Aumiler, Ticijana Ban

Published Jun 24, 2024• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Abstract We explore light storage in antirelaxation-coated and buffer-gas-filled alkali vapor cells, employing electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in warm rubidium vapor. We conduct a comparative study of light storage performance under identical experimental conditions for these two cell types. Using a buffer-gas-filled cell resulted in approximately a tenfold improvement in memory efficiency and storage time compared to antirelaxation-coated cells. Moreover, we demonstrate that memory efficiency can be further enhanced by choosing a near-resonant EIT $$\Lambda$$ Λ -scheme over a resonant one. Our findings provide valuable insights for optimizing light storage, thereby contributing to the development of field-deployable quantum memories.

DOI
10.1038/s41598-024-63489-8

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Quantum Communications and Quantum Imaging•Sep 18, 2025•1 citation
Abstract We explore light storage in antirelaxation-coated and buffer-gas-filled alkali vapor cells, employing electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in warm rubidium vapor. We conduct a comparative study of light storage performance under identical experimental conditions for these two cell types. Using a buffer-gas-filled cell resulted in approximately a tenfold improvement in memory efficiency and storage time compared to antirelaxation-coated cells. Moreover, we demonstrate that memory efficiency can be further enhanced by choosing a near-resonant EIT Λ\LambdaΛ Λ -scheme over a resonant one. Our findings provide valuable insights for optimizing light storage, thereby contributing to the development of field-deployable quantum memories.
Alkali vapor cells with antirelaxation coated walls can have long atomic coherence times. However, using such coated cells in the hyperfine configuration for electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) requires longitudinal atomic motion to be confined to less than the hyperfine wavelength. We employed a narrow (1 mm) coated cell geometry to study hyperfine EIT and slow and stored light in warm R87b vapor, with results comparable to those in buffer gas cells and showing the promise of such cells for several applications.
Atomic vapor-cell quantum memories are key devices for quantum information science. Anti-relaxation coatings on the inner surface of the cell suppress ground-state dephasing caused by atom-wall collisions, thereby improving memory performance. Nevertheless, systematic performance comparisons of vapor-cell quantum memories with different anti-relaxation coatings under identical conditions remain limited. Here, we experimentally compare quantum-memory performance in cesium vapor cells with and without anti-relaxation coatings-uncoated, paraffin-coated, and alkene-coated-under otherwise identical conditions to assess coating-dependent effects. Using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) as the light storage protocol, we characterize transmission, memory efficiency, and storage lifetime. The alkene-coated cell yields the largest enhancement in retrieval efficiency-more than fourfold relative to the uncoated cell and more than twofold relative to the paraffin-coated cell-while exhibiting a modest (approximately 16%) increase in storage lifetime. These results provide a systematic benchmark for evaluating anti-relaxation coatings and for this instance, identify alkene coatings as an effective choice for improving retrieval efficiency in warm-vapor-cell memories.
We investigate optical memory efficiency and storage time across 85Rb^{85}\mathrm{Rb}85Rb and 87Rb^{87}\mathrm{Rb}87Rb isotopes on both the D1_11​ and D2_22​ transitions. Maximum efficiency of up to 44%44\%44% was achieved using the D1_11​ line in both isotopes, with up to 1.5 ms storage time. %Maximum efficiencies of 44%44\%44% were measured for both isotopes on the D1_11​ line, in agreement within 1σ1σ1σ, while the longest storage time reached is 1.51.51.5 ms. These performance levels are enabled by warm vapor rubidium buffer-gas filled cells, large optical depth, and a near-resonant EIT scheme optimized with respect to the one- and two-photon detuning. Our results provide practical guidelines for optimizing the performance of warm rubidium vapor optical memories in simplified experimental configurations. We expect that the optimization approach employed here, specifically operating at elevated temperatures while identifying the optimal single-photon and two-photon detunings, should lead to improved performance of the quantum memory.
This thesis set out to investigate light storage based on dynamic electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a room-temperature atomic ensemble of rubidium as a means to provide a quantum memory for single-photons created by a single rubidium atom coupled to a high-finesse optical resonator. Setting up the light storage medium presented a new addition to the research group's portfolio of experimental techniques and led to investigations of EIT, slow light and stored light in warm rubidium-87 vapour. Lambda level schemes connecting Zeeman or hyperfine substates on the D1 and D2 lines were addressed in rubidium vapour cells containing different buffer gases and different isotopic fractions of rubidium-87 and rubidium-85. Single beam spectroscopy with a weak probe was used to characterise the vapour cells. A numerical method to fit the D line spectrum to a theoretical model to include isotopic fractions and collisional broadening of a buffer gas has been implemented. Temperature and isotopic fractions could be reliably extracted from the fit parameters. For an offset-stabilisation of two lasers to address a lambda level scheme connecting the two different hyperfine groundstates in rubidium a phase locked loop including a frequency divider has been designed and implemented. Light storage and retrieval has been demonstrated using a Zeeman scheme on the D1 line. Two microsecond long classical light pulses containing one million photons on average were stored and retrieved with an efficiency of 15% after a delay of one microsecond. Several methods of attenuating the strong co-propagating control laser beam to allow for lowering the signal pulse intensity in future experiments are discussed.
Electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a promising approach for implementing quantum memory, a key component of quantum communication networks. However, its storage time is limited by decoherence, primarily due to atomic motion. Anti-relaxation coatings can mitigate decoherence by minimizing atom-wall interactions. In this study, we experimentally investigate EIT-based quantum memory in cesium vapor cells with different anti-relaxation coatings. We compare the EIT characteristics and storage behavior across different coatings to assess their suitability for quantum memory applications.