Quantum Memory with Optically Trapped Atoms

Chih-Sung Chuu, Thorsten Strassel, Bo Zhao, Markus Koch, Yu-Ao Chen, Shuai Chen, Zhen-Sheng Yuan, Joerg Schmiedmayer, Jian-Wei Pan

Published 2008-08-20Version 1

We report the experimental demonstration of a quantum memory for collective atomic states in a far-detuned optical dipole trap. Generation of the collective atomic state is heralded by the detection of a Raman scattered photon and accompanied by storage in the ensemble of atoms. The optical dipole trap provides confinement for the atoms during the quantum storage while retaining the atomic coherence. We probe the quantum storage by cross-correlation of the photon pair arising from the Raman scattering and the retrieval of the atomic state stored in the memory. Non-classical correlations are observed for storage times up to 60 microseconds.