Georgia Institute of Technology reported a milestone a quantum network milestone: entangling light with an optical atomic coherence composed of interacting atoms in two different states.
Researchers developed a state-intensive optical trap using both ground-state and highly-excited (Rydberg) rubidium atoms. This allowed the researchers to increase the rate at which they could generate photons by a factor of 100 compared to their previous work.
“We want to allow photons to propagate to distant locations so we can develop scalable protocols to entangle more and more nodes,” said Alex Kuzmich, a professor in Georgia Tech’s School of Physics. “If you can have coherence between the ground and Rydberg atoms, they can interact strongly while emitting light in a cooperative fashion. The combination of strong atomic interactions and collective light emissions results in entanglement between atoms and light. We think that this approach is quite promising for quantum networking.”
The research was reported June 19 in the early edition of the journal Nature. The research has been supported by the Atomic Physics Program and the Quantum Memories Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and by the National Science Foundation.
http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?nid=218131
