Heralded single excitation of atomic ensemble via solid-state-based telecom photon detection

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates heralded single excitations in atomic ensembles using solid-state quantum frequency conversion and telecom photon detection, enabling advanced quantum network applications with mature telecom technology.

Contribution

First demonstration of heralded single excitation in atomic ensembles via solid-state quantum frequency conversion and telecom photon detection.

Findings

Non-classical photon statistics confirmed by autocorrelation measurement

Successful integration of solid-state QFC with atomic ensemble for telecom photons

Potential for enhanced quantum communication using mature telecom infrastructure

Abstract

Telecom photonic quantum networks with matter quantum systems enable a rich variety of applications, such as a long distance quantum cryptography and one-way quantum computing. Preparation of a heralded single excitation (HSE) in an atomic ensemble by detecting a telecom wavelength photon having a correlation with the atomic excitation is an important step. Such a system has been demonstrated with a quantum frequency conversion (QFC) to telecom wavelength employing a Rb atomic cloud. However the limited wavelength selection prevents the next step. Here we for the first time demonstrate HSE with a solid-state-based QFC and a detector for a telecom wavelength that will have a great advantage of the utility of mature telecom technologies. We unambiguously show that the demonstrated HSE indicates a non-classical statistics by the direct measurement of the autocorrelation function.