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Published August 2018 | Published + Accepted Version
Journal Article Open

Optimization of photon storage fidelity in ordered atomic arrays

Abstract

A major application for atomic ensembles consists of a quantum memory for light, in which an optical state can be reversibly converted to a collective atomic excitation on demand. There exists a well-known fundamental bound on the storage error, when the ensemble is describable by a continuous medium governed by the Maxwell–Bloch equations. However, these equations are semi-phenomenological, as they treat emission of the atoms into other directions other than the mode of interest as being independent. On the other hand, in systems such as dense, ordered atomic arrays, atoms interact with each other strongly and spatial interference of the emitted light might be exploited to suppress emission into unwanted directions, thereby enabling improved error bounds. Here, we develop a general formalism that fully accounts for spatial interference, and which finds the maximum storage efficiency for a single photon with known spatial input mode into a collection of atoms with discrete, known positions. As an example, we apply this technique to study a finite two-dimensional square array of atoms. We show that such a system enables a storage error that scales with atom number N_a like ~(log N_a)^2/N_a^2, and that, remarkably, an array of just 4 × 4 atoms in principle allows for an error of less than 1%, which is comparable to a disordered ensemble with an optical depth of around 600.

Additional Information

© 2018 The Author(s). Published by IOP Publishing Ltd on behalf of Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI. Received 1 April 2018. Accepted 20 August 2018. Accepted Manuscript online 20 August 2018. Published 31 August 2018. We are grateful to H J Kimble, S Yelin, M D Lukin, E Shahmoon, Y Wang, and M Gullans for stimulating discussions. MTM was supported by the 'la Caixa-Severo Ochoa' PhD Fellowship. AA-G was supported by an IQIM postdoctoral fellowship and the Global Marie Curie Fellowship LANTERN. AVG acknowledges support from ARL CDQI, ARO MURI, NSF QIS, AFOSR, NSF PFC at JQI, and ARO. DEC acknowledges support from Fundacio Privada Cellex, Spanish MINECO Severo Ochoa Program SEV-2015-0522, MINECO Plan Nacional Grant CANS, CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya, and ERC Starting Grant FOQAL.

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Published - Manzoni_2018_New_J._Phys._20_083048.pdf

Accepted Version - nihms-1510634.pdf

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Created:
August 19, 2023
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