Heralded Single-Magnon Quantum Memory for Photon Polarization States

Journal Article · Fri Jul 24 04:00:00 EDT 2009 · Physical Review Letters

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PHYSREVLETT.103.043601· OSTI ID:21347082

Tanji, Haruka; Simon, Jonathan ^[1]; Ghosh, Saikat; Bloom, Benjamin; Vuletic, Vladan ^[2]

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1. Department of Physics, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, MIT-Harvard Center for Ultracold Atoms, and Research Laboratory of Electronics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139 (United States)

We demonstrate a heralded quantum memory where a photon announces the mapping of a light polarization state onto a single collective-spin excitation (magnon) shared between two atomic ensembles. The magnon can be converted at a later time into a single polarized photon with polarization fidelity over 90(2)% for all fiducial input states, well above the classical limit of (2/3). The process can be viewed as a nondestructive quantum probe where a photon is detected, stored, and regenerated without touching its - potentially undetermined - polarization.

• OSTI ID: 21347082
• Journal Information: Physical Review Letters, Journal Name: Physical Review Letters Journal Issue: 4 Vol. 103; ISSN 0031-9007; ISSN PRLTAO
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS
ANGULAR MOMENTUM
BOSONS
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ENERGY-LEVEL TRANSITIONS
EXCITATION
MAPPING
MASSLESS PARTICLES
PARTICLE PROPERTIES
PHOTONS
POLARIZATION
RADIATIONS
SPIN
VISIBLE RADIATION