Noise-free on-demand atomic frequency comb quantum memory

Abstract

We present an extension of the atomic frequency comb protocol that utilizes the Stark effect to perform noise-free, on-demand, control. An experimental realization of this protocol was implemented in the Pr^{3+}:Y_{2}SiO_{5} solid-state system, and a recall efficiency of 38% for a 0.8 μs storage time was achieved. Experiments were performed with both bright pulses as well as weak-coherent states, the latter achieving a signal-to-noise ratio of 570±120 using input pulses with an average photon number of ∼0.1. The principal limitation for a longer storage time was found to be the minimum peak width attainable for Pr^{3+}:Y_{2}SiO_{5}. We employ an adaptation of an established atomic frequency comb model to investigate an on-demand, wide-bandwidth, memory based on Eu^{3+}:Y_{2}SiO_{5}. From this, we determine that a storage time as long as 100 μs may be practical even without recourse to spin-wave storage.