Jun Rui

Efficient and long-lived quantum memory with cold atoms inside a ring cavity

A quantum memory that combines high-efficiency and long lifetime is now demonstrated. Employing a collective excitation, or spin wave, in an ensemble of atoms in a trap improves memory lifetime, while incorporating the trap into an optical ring cavity simultaneously aids higher retrieval efficiency. Quantum memories are regarded as one of the fundamental building blocks of linear-optical quantum computation1 and long-distance quantum communication2. A long-standing goal to realize scalable quantum information processing is to build a long-lived and efficient quantum memory. There have been significant efforts distributed towards this goal. However, either efficient but short-lived3,4 or long-lived but inefficient quantum memories5,6,7 have been demonstrated so far. Here we report a high-performance quantum memory in which long lifetime and high retrieval efficiency meet for the first time. By placing a ring cavity around an atomic ensemble, employing a pair of clock states, creating a long-wavelength spin wave and arranging the set-up in the gravitational direction, we realize a quantum memory with an intrinsic spin wave to photon conversion efficiency of 73(2)% together with a storage lifetime of 3.2(1) ms. This realization provides an essential tool towards scalable linear-optical quantum information processing.

Controlled state-to-state atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom-dimer mixture

Ultracold molecules offer remarkable opportunities for the study of chemical reactions close to zero temperature. Although significant progress has been achieved in exploring ultracold bimolecular reactions, the investigations are usually limited to measurements of the overall loss rates of the reactants. Detection of the reaction products will improve our understanding of the reaction mechanism and provide a unique opportunity to study the state-to-state reaction dynamics. Here we report on the direct observation of an exoergic atom-exchange reaction in an ultracold atom–dimer mixture. Both the atom and molecule products are observed and the state-to-state reaction rate coefficient is measured. By changing the magnetic field, the reaction can be switched on or off, and the rate coefficient can be controlled. The observed atom-exchange reaction is an effective spin-exchange interaction between the dimer and the atom and may be exploited to study the Kondo effect with ultracold atoms. Products from ultracold atom–dimer exothermic reactions can be directly observed by controlling the energy released during the process, bringing the study of chemical dynamics to the quantum level.

Operating Spin Echo in the Quantum Regime for an Atomic-Ensemble Quantum Memory.

Spin echo is a powerful technique to extend atomic or nuclear coherence times by overcoming the dephasing due to inhomogeneous broadenings. However, there are disputes about the feasibility of applying this technique to an ensemble-based quantum memory at the single-quanta level. In this experimental study, we find that noise due to imperfections of the rephasing pulses has both intense superradiant and weak isotropic parts. By properly arranging the beam directions and optimizing the pulse fidelities, we successfully manage to operate the spin echo technique in the quantum regime by observing nonclassical photon-photon correlations as well as the quantum behavior of retrieved photons. Our work for the first time demonstrates the feasibility of harnessing the spin echo method to extend the lifetime of ensemble-based quantum memories at the single-quanta level.

Highly retrievable spin-wave-photon entanglement source.

Entanglement between a single photon and a quantum memory forms the building blocks for a quantum repeater and quantum network. Previous entanglement sources are typically with low retrieval efficiency, which limits future larger-scale applications. Here, we report a source of highly retrievable spin-wave-photon entanglement. Polarization entanglement is created through interaction of a single photon with an ensemble of atoms inside a low-finesse ring cavity. The cavity is engineered to be resonant for dual spin-wave modes, which thus enables efficient retrieval of the spin-wave qubit. An intrinsic retrieval efficiency up to 76(4)% has been observed. Such a highly retrievable atom-photon entanglement source will be very useful in future larger-scale quantum repeater and quantum network applications.

Feshbach loss spectroscopy in an ultracold Na23−K40 mixture

We perform Feshbach spectroscopy in an ultracold mixture of

Dynamical zeroing of spin-wave momentum to suppress motional dephasing in an atomic-ensemble quantum memory

^{23}

Demonstration of interferometric atom-pattern engineering via Rabi oscillations

Na and

Preparation and storage of frequency-uncorrelated entangled photons from cavity-enhanced SPDC

^{40}

Preparation and storage of frequency-uncorrelated entangled photons from cavity-enhanced spontaneous parametric downconversion

K with different spin-state combinations. We have observed 24 new interspecies Feshbach resonances at magnetic field up to 350 G. A full coupled-channel calculation is performed to assign these resonances. Among them, 12 resonances are identified as d-wave Feshbach resonances. These d-wave Feshbach resonances are about 5 G systematically smaller than the predications based on previous model potential. Taking into account these new experimental results, we improve the Born-Oppenheimer potentials between Na and K, and achieve good agreement between the theory and experiment for all the observed Feshbach resonances.

Holographic Storage of Biphoton Entanglement

Motion-induced dephasing is a dominant decoherence mechanism for atom-gas quantum memories. In this paper, we develop a new coherent manipulation technique which enables arbitrary engineering of the spin-wave momentum with neglectable noise. By zeroing the spin-wave momentum, motion-induced dephasing can be frozen completely. We experimentally demonstrate this scheme with laser-cooled atoms in a DLCZ configuration. By applying the freezing pulses, memory lifetime gets extended significantly to the limit of atom cloud expansion and does not depend on the detection angle anymore. The observed high cross-correlation above 20 proves that high-fidelity memory operation is well preserved after coherent manipulation.