Light storage in a room temperature atomic vapor based on coherent population oscillations

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates a room-temperature atomic vapor technique for light storage using coherent population oscillations, which is phase-preserving and robust against dephasing effects, with storage limited by ground state population lifetime.

Contribution

It presents the first experimental demonstration of CPO-based light storage in a room-temperature atomic vapor, highlighting its robustness and phase-preserving nature.

Findings

Light storage achieved at room temperature using CPO.

Storage is phase-preserving and robust to magnetic inhomogeneities.

Storage time limited by ground state population lifetime.

Abstract

We report the experimental observation of Coherent Population Oscillation (CPO) based light storage in an atomic vapor cell at room temperature. Using the ultranarrow CPO between the ground levels of a $\Lambda$ system selected by polarization in metastable $^4$He, such a light storage is experimentally shown to be phase preserving. As it does not involve any atomic coherences it has the advantage of being robust to dephasing effects such as small magnetic field inhomogeneities. The storage time is limited by the population lifetime of the ground states of the $\Lambda$ system.