Single-Photon Storage in a Ground-State Vapor Cell Quantum Memory
Gianni Buser1, Roberto Mottola1, Madhavakkannan Saravanan1, Björn Cotting1, Janik Wolters1,2,3, Philipp Treutlein1
1) Departement Physik, Universität Basel, Klingelbergstr. 82, Basel 4056, Switzerland
2) Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt e.V. (DLR), Institute of Optical Sensor Systems, Rutherfordstr. 2, Berlin 12489, Germany
3) Technische Universität Berlin, Institut für Optik und Atomare Physik, Hardenbergstr. 36, Berlin 10623, Germany
Interfaced single-photon sources and quantum memories for photons together form a foundational component of quantum technology. Achieving compatibility between heterogeneous, state-of-the-art devices is a long-standing challenge. We built and successfully interfaced a heralded single-photon source based on cavity-enhanced spontaneous parametric down-conversion in PPKTP and a matched memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency in warm 87Rb vapor. The bandwidth of the photons emitted by the source is 370 MHz, placing its speed in the technologically relevant regime while remaining well within the acceptance bandwidth of the memory. Simultaneously, the experimental complexity is kept low, with all components operating at or above room temperature. Read-out noise of the memory is considerably reduced by exploiting polarization selection rules in the hyperfine structure of spin-polarized atoms. For the first time, we demonstrate single-photon storage and retrieval in a ground-state vapor cell memory, with gc,ret(2)=0.177(23) demonstrating the single-photon character of the retrieved light. Our platform of single-photon source and atomic memory is attractive for future experiments on room-temperature quantum networks operating at high bandwidth.