Light storage for one second in room-temperature alkali vapor

Or Katz () and Ofer Firstenberg
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Or Katz: Weizmann Institute of Science
Ofer Firstenberg: Weizmann Institute of Science

Nature Communications, 2018, vol. 9, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract Light storage, the controlled and reversible mapping of photons onto long-lived states of matter, enables memory capability in optical quantum networks. Prominent storage media are warm alkali vapors due to their strong optical coupling and long-lived spin states. In a dense gas, the random atomic collisions dominate the lifetime of the spin coherence, limiting the storage time to a few milliseconds. Here we present and experimentally demonstrate a storage scheme that is insensitive to spin-exchange collisions, thus enabling long storage times at high atomic densities. This unique property is achieved by mapping the light field onto spin orientation within a decoherence-free subspace of spin states. We report on a record storage time of 1 s in room-temperature cesium vapor, a 100-fold improvement over existing storage schemes. Furthermore, our scheme lays the foundations for hour-long quantum memories using rare-gas nuclear spins.

Date: 2018
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DOI: 10.1038/s41467-018-04458-4

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