Highly-efficient optical storage of two orthogonal polarization modes in a cold atom ensemble

Wen Ya-Fei, Wang Sheng-Zhi, Xu Zhong-Xiao, Li Shu-Jing, Wang Hai
2018 Wuli xuebao  
Optical quantum memory plays an important role in scaling-up linear optical quantum computations and longdistance quantum communication. For effectively realizing such tasks, a long-lived and highly-efficient quantum memory is needed. The dynamic electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) process can be used for completing an absorptive storage scheme in an atomic ensemble. In such a process, the quantum states of coming single photons can be coherently transformed into spin waves
more » ... with coherences between atomic ground levels via switching off controlling light beam. For storing a single-mode optical signal, a pair of ground levels is involved. While for storing an optical polarization qubit, i.e., two orthogonal polarization modes, the coherence between two pairs of ground levels will be involved. Also, to obtain a high efficiency in the EIT optical storage, the optical-depth of the cold ensemble should be high. For prolonging the coherent time of the spin waves stored in atomic ensemble, decoherence between spin waves due to atomic motion and non-uniform Zeeman shift of ground levels should be effectively suppressed. Recently, a long-lived and highly-efficient
doi:10.7498/aps.67.20171217 fatcat:redlcxpvgnduvjiy3rrfyqj6my