Suppression of dark-state polariton collapses in cold-atom quantum memory

Abstract

We observe dark-state polariton collapses and revivals in a quantum memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency on a cloud of cold cesium atoms in a magnetic field. Using ${\sigma }^{+}$ polarized signal and control beams in the direction of the magnetic field, we suppress the dark-state polariton collapses by polarizing the atoms towards one of the stretched Zeeman states and optimizing the frequency detuning of the control beam. In this way, we demonstrate a quantum memory with only partial dark-state polariton collapses, making the memory usable at any storage time, not only at discretized times of revivals. We obtain storage time of more than 400 $\mu$s, which is ten times longer than what we can achieve by trying to annul the magnetic field.

arXiv comment6 pages, 4 figures, improved version

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Accelerated Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency quantum memory via shortcuts to adiabaticity