Entanglement between more than two hundred macroscopic atomic ensembles in a solid

P. Zarkeshian, C. Deshmukh, N. Sinclair, S. K. Goyal, G. H. Aguilar, P. Lefebvre, M. Grimau Puigibert, V. B. Verma, F. Marsili, M. D. Shaw, S. W. Nam, K. Heshami, D. Oblak, W. Tittel and C. Simon ()
Additional contact information
P. Zarkeshian: University of Calgary
C. Deshmukh: University of Calgary
N. Sinclair: University of Calgary
S. K. Goyal: University of Calgary
G. H. Aguilar: University of Calgary
P. Lefebvre: University of Calgary
M. Grimau Puigibert: University of Calgary
V. B. Verma: National Institute of Standards and Technology
F. Marsili: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
M. D. Shaw: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology
S. W. Nam: National Institute of Standards and Technology
K. Heshami: National Research Council of Canada
D. Oblak: University of Calgary
W. Tittel: University of Calgary
C. Simon: University of Calgary

Nature Communications, 2017, vol. 8, issue 1, 1-10

Abstract: Abstract There are both fundamental and practical motivations for studying whether quantum entanglement can exist in macroscopic systems. However, multiparty entanglement is generally fragile and difficult to quantify. Dicke states are multiparty entangled states where a single excitation is delocalized over many systems. Building on previous work on quantum memories for photons, we create a Dicke state in a solid by storing a single photon in a crystal that contains many large atomic ensembles with distinct resonance frequencies. The photon is re-emitted at a well-defined time due to an interference effect analogous to multi-slit diffraction. We derive a lower bound for the number of entangled ensembles based on the contrast of the interference and the single-photon character of the input, and we experimentally demonstrate entanglement between over two hundred ensembles, each containing a billion atoms. We also illustrate the fact that each individual ensemble contains further entanglement.

Date: 2017
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-017-00897-7

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