No Arabic abstract
We study quantum compression and decompression of light pulses that carry quantum information using a photon-echo quantum memory technique with controllable inhomogeneous broadening of an isolated atomic absorption line. We investigate media with differently broadened absorption profiles, transverse and longitudinal, finding that the recall efficiency can be as large as unity and that the quantum information encoded into the photonic qubits can remain unperturbed. Our results provide new insight into reversible light-atom interaction, and are interesting in view of future quantum communication networks, where pulse compression and decompression may play an important role to increase the qubit rate, or to map quantum information from photonic carriers with large optical bandwidth into atomic memories with smaller bandwidth.
The future of long-distance quantum communication relies on the availability of quantum memory, i.e. devices that allow temporal storage of quantum information. We review research related to quantum state storage based on a photon-echo approach in rare earth ion doped crystals and glasses.
Quantum memory is a key element for quantum repeaters and linear optical quantum computers. In addition to memory, repeaters and computers also require manipulating quantum states by means of unitary transformations, which is generally accomplished using interferometric optical setups. We experimentally investigate photon-echo type atom-light interaction for the possibility to combine storage with controlled transformation of quantum states. As an example, we demonstrate unambiguous state discrimination of qubits and qutrits in an Ti:Er:LiNbO$_3$ waveguide cooled to 3K using states encoded into large ensembles of identically prepared photons in superposition of different temporal modes. The high robustness and flexibility of our approach makes it promising for quantum communication and computation as well as precision measurements.
We report the fabrication and characterization of a Ti$^{4+}$:Tm$^{3+}$:LiNbO$_3$ optical waveguide in view of photon-echo quantum memory applications. In particular, we investigated room- and cryogenic-temperature properties via absorption, spectral hole burning, photon echo, and Stark spectroscopy. We found radiative lifetimes of 82 $mu$s and 2.4 ms for the $^3$H$_4$ and $^3$F$_4$ levels, respectively, and a 44% branching ratio from the $^3$H$_{4}$ to the $^3$F$_4$ level. We also measured an optical coherence time of 1.6 $mu$s for the $^3$H$_6leftrightarrow{}^3$H$_4$, 795 nm wavelength transition, and investigated the limitation of spectral diffusion to spectral hole burning. Upon application of magnetic fields of a few hundred Gauss, we observed persistent spectral holes with lifetimes up to seconds. Furthermore, we measured a linear Stark shift of 25 kHz$cdot$cm/V. Our results are promising for integrated, electro-optical, waveguide quantum memory for photons.
In this book chapter we review photon echo based schemes for optical quantum memory. We outline the basic principles of the Atomic Frequency Comb (AFC), Gradient Echo Memory (GEM) and Rephased Amplified Spontaneous Emission (RASE) protocols. We describe the properties of the rare-earth ion and gaseous vapours ensembles that have been used to carry out experimental demonstrations. These experiments are then discussed with reference to relevant classical and quantum performance criteria.
We propose a new quantum numerical scheme to control the dynamics of a quantum walker in a two dimensional space-time grid. More specifically, we show how, introducing a quantum memory for each of the spatial grid, this result can be achieved simply by acting on the initial state of the whole system, and therefore can be exactly controlled once for all. As example we prove analytically how to encode in the initial state any arbitrary walkers mean trajectory and variance. This brings significantly closer the possibility of implementing dynamically interesting physics models on medium term quantum devices, and introduces a new direction in simulating aspects of quantum field theories (QFTs), notably on curved manifold.