Highly efficient photon-matter interfaces for quantum information applications

该研究计划旨在展示光脉冲的高效存储和检索，同时保持光子的量子态。这种光子的量子记忆可以通过利用电磁感应透明的动态形式，将光的量子态映射到相同原子系综内自旋的集体激发上来实现。将开发实用量子信息“工具箱”的一些基本要素，包括通用量子存储器优化技术，低损耗/高抑制光学滤波器，以及基于非线性原子介质和高质量晶体微谐振器的单光子脉冲和非经典统计连续光源（“压缩光”或“压缩真空”）。这些实验将对教育和科学产生更广泛的影响。大多数实验结果适用于各种各样的原子、固体和光子系统，热铷原子系综将作为原型相互作用介质，并将推动量子中继器等量子信息技术的实际实现。该计划的另一个更广泛的影响是让本科生和研究生参与不同层次的前沿科学研究，并向他们传授原子物理学、量子光学和量子信息科学的基本概念。

This research program aims to demonstrate high-efficiency storage and retrieval of light pulses while preserving the quantum state of the photons. Such quantum memory for photons can be realized by mapping the quantum states of light to the collective excitation of spins inside an ensemble of identical atoms using a dynamic form of electromagnetically induced transparency. Some essential elements of practical quantum information "toolbox" will be developed, including universal quantum memory optimization techniques, low-loss/high-rejection optical filters, and sources of single photon pulses and continuous light with non-classical statistics ("squeezed light" or "squeezed vacuum") based on both nonlinear atomic media and high-quality crystalline microresonators. These experiments will have significant educational and scientific broader impacts. Most of the experimental results are applicable for wide variety of atomic, solid-state and photonic systems, and an ensemble of warm rubidium atoms will serve as a prototype interaction medium, and they will advance practical realization of quantum information technologies, such as quantum repeaters. The other broader impact of the program is involvement of undergraduate and graduate students at different levels in cutting-edge scientific research, and educating them about basic concepts of atomic physics, quantum optics and quantum information science.