title: Demonstration of atomic frequency comb memory for light with spin-wave storage.
abstract: We present a light-storage experiment in a praseodymium-doped crystal where the light is mapped onto an inhomogeneously broadened optical transition shaped into an atomic frequency comb. After absorption of the light, the optical excitation is converted into a spin-wave excitation by a control pulse. A second control pulse reads the memory (on-demand) by reconverting the spin-wave excitation to an optical one, where the comb structure causes a photon-echo-type rephasing of the dipole moments and directional retrieval of the light. This combination of photon-echo and spin-wave storage allows us to store submicrosecond (450 ns) pulses for up to 20 mus. The scheme has a high potential for storing multiple temporal modes in the single-photon regime, which is an important resource for future long-distance quantum communication based on quantum repeaters.
authors.affiliation: Group of Applied Physics, University of Geneva, CH-1211 Geneva 4, Switzerland. mikael.afzelius@unige.ch
authors.forename: Mikael
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Afzelius
authors.forename: Imam
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Usmani
authors.forename: Atia
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Amari
authors.forename: Björn
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Lauritzen
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Walther
authors.forename: Christoph
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Simon
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sangouard
authors.forename: Jirí
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Minár
authors.forename: Hugues
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: de Riedmatten
authors.forename: Nicolas
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Gisin
authors.forename: Stefan
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kröll
mesh_terms: D017785:Photons; D011789:Quantum Theory; D013997:Time Factors