Stopped Images In Coherent Cold Atomic Vapors

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Cold atoms will be used to slow and stop optical images demonstrating a new technologically powerful technique for information management. The effort will include realizing an optical buffer or memory with the ability to load, store and retrieve weak and quantum transverse images. The combined expertise of Professor Howell's Slow Light and Quantum Optics group and the cold atoms experience and capabilities of Professor Bigelow's Cooling and Trapping group are ideally suited to achieve this goal. Encoded optical pulses will first pump a cold atom sample. Once the pump light is extinguished, the optical fields will have been interconverted to spin waves in the atomic medium, thereby storing the local electric field information of the pump. One key goal will be to stack images in the medium and then, using transverse excitation, pull out images one a time. There will also be studies to explore the capabilities of the system for making transverse entangled photons, which can then be stored in a similar medium. Preliminary studies indicate that microsecond pulses may have the possibilities of being stored for up to minutes. It is expected that this research will make a significant contribution to the field of quantum information and image processing as it will provide a new means for information storage. There are also many aspects of the research which will be of fundamental interest to the broader community including: adiabatic pulse compression and decompression, image storage and distortion, transverse coherences and narrow bandwidth pulsed entangled photons. In addition to having impact on the frontiers of physics, the work will involve the training of the next-generation workforce in AMO physics and quantum information science. This training involves students at all levels: Professors Howell & Bigelow annually participate in the Research Experiences for Undergraduates program and the Research Experiences for Teachers program and both groups educate a diverse set of graduate students.