Cavity-enhanced storage in an optical spin-wave memory

We report on the experimental demonstration of an optical spin-wave memory, based on the atomic frequency comb (AFC) scheme, where the storage efficiency is strongly enhanced by an optical cavity. The cavity is of low finesse, but operated in an impedance matching regime to achieve high absorption i...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:New journal of physics 2014-08, Vol.16 (8), p.83005-14
Main Authors: Jobez, P, Usmani, I, Timoney, N, Laplane, C, Gisin, N, Afzelius, M
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Absorption
cavity-enhanced light-matter interactions
Crystals
Delay
Echoes
Holes
Impedance matching
Magnons
Optical memory (data storage)
Optical pulses
photonic memory
Physics
quantum communication
rare-earth-ion doped crystals
Repeaters
Spin waves
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:We report on the experimental demonstration of an optical spin-wave memory, based on the atomic frequency comb (AFC) scheme, where the storage efficiency is strongly enhanced by an optical cavity. The cavity is of low finesse, but operated in an impedance matching regime to achieve high absorption in our intrinsically low-absorbing Eu3+:Y2SiO5 crystal. For storage of optical pulses as an optical excitation (AFC echoes), we reach efficiencies of 53% and 28% for 2 μs and 10 μs delays, respectively. For a complete AFC spin-wave memory we reach an efficiency of 12%, including spin-wave dephasing, which is a 12-fold increase with respect to previous results in this material. This result is an important step towards the goal of making efficient and long-lived quantum memories based on spin waves, in the context of quantum repeaters and quantum networks.
ISSN:1367-2630
1367-2630
DOI:10.1088/1367-2630/16/8/083005