24 May 2017

Our group demonstrated a solid-state source of correlated photon pairs with embedded spin-wave quantum memory, using a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. We show strong quantum correlations between the photons, high enough for performing quantum communication.  The scientific results of this study have been published in Physical Review Letters as Editor´s suggestion and also highlighted in Physics.

The generation and distribution of quantum correlations between photonic qubits is a key resource in quantum information science. For applications in quantum networks and quantum repeaters, it is required that these quantum correlations be stored in a quantum memory. In 2001, Duan, Lukin, Cirac, and Zoller (DLCZ) proposed a scheme combining a correlated photon-pair source and a quantum memory in atomic gases, which has enabled fast progress towards elementary quantum networks. In this Letter, we demonstrate a solid-state source of correlated photon pairs with embedded spin-wave quantum memory, using a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal. We show strong quantum correlations between the photons, high enough for performing quantum communication. Unlike the original DLCZ proposal, our scheme is inherently multimode thanks to a built-in rephasing mechanism, allowing us to demonstrate storage of 11 temporal modes. These results represent an important step towards the realization of complex quantum networks architectures using solid-state resources.

The research team that participated in this study includes Kutlu Kutluer, Margherita Mazzera, and Prof. Hugues de Riedmatten.

Reference :

Solid-State Source of Nonclassical Photon Pairs with Embedded Multimode Quantum Memory
Kutlu Kutluer, Margherita Mazzera, and Prof. Hugues de Riedmatten
Phys. Rev. Lett. 118, 210502 (2017)