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Published July 2017 | Submitted + Published
Journal Article Open

Exponential improvement in photon storage fidelities using subradiance and "selective radiance" in atomic arrays

Abstract

A central goal within quantum optics is to realize efficient, controlled interactions between photons and atomic media. A fundamental limit in nearly all applications based on such systems arises from spontaneous emission, in which photons are absorbed by atoms and then rescattered into undesired channels. In typical theoretical treatments of atomic ensembles, it is assumed that this rescattering occurs independently, and at a rate given by a single isolated atom, which in turn gives rise to standard limits of fidelity in applications such as quantum memories for light or photonic quantum gates. However, this assumption can in fact be dramatically violated. In particular, it has long been known that spontaneous emission of a collective atomic excitation can be significantly suppressed through strong interference in emission between atoms. While this concept of "subradiance" is not new, thus far the techniques to exploit the effect have not been well understood. In this work, we provide a comprehensive treatment of this problem. First, we show that in ordered atomic arrays in free space, subradiant states acquire an elegant interpretation in terms of optical modes that are guided by the array, which only emit due to scattering from the ends of the finite system. We also go beyond the typically studied regime of a single atomic excitation and elucidate the properties of subradiant states in the many-excitation limit. Finally, we introduce the new concept of "selective radiance." Whereas subradiant states experience a reduced coupling to all optical modes, selectively radiant states are tailored to simultaneously radiate efficiently into a desired channel while scattering into undesired channels is suppressed, thus enabling an enhanced atom-light interface. We show that these states naturally appear in chains of atoms coupled to nanophotonic structures, and we analyze the performance of photon storage exploiting such states. We find numerically that selectively radiant states allow for a photon storage error that scales exponentially better with the number of atoms than previously known bounds.

Additional Information

© 2017 Published by the American Physical Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license. Further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the published article's title, journal citation, and DOI. Received 15 March 2017; revised manuscript received 30 May 2017; published 3 August 2017. We are grateful to C. Regal, A. M. Rey, A. Gorshkov, E. Polzik, S. Yelin, M. Lukin, H. Ritsch, E. Shahmoon, and J. Muniz for stimulating discussions. Funding for H. J. K. is provided by the AFOSR Quantum Many-Body Physics with Photons and QuMPASS MURI, NSF Grant No. PHY-1205729, the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Award No. N00014-16-1-2399; the ONR QOMAND MURI; and the IQIM, an NSF Physics Frontiers Center. A. A.-G. was supported by the IQIM Postdoctoral Fellowship and the Global Marie Curie Fellowship LANTERN (655701). D. E. C. acknowledges support from Fundació Privada Cellex, Marie Curie CIG ATOMNANO, Spanish MINECO Severo Ochoa Programme SEV-2015-0522, MINECO Plan Nacional Grant CANS, CERCA Programme/Generalitat de Catalunya, and ERC Starting Grant FOQAL.

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Published - PhysRevX.7.031024.pdf

Submitted - 1703.03382.pdf

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Created:
August 19, 2023
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October 25, 2023