Single-photon-level light storage with distributed Rydberg excitations in cold atoms

doi:10.1007/s11467-021-1105-6

Front. Phys.

2022, Vol. 17

Issue (2) : 22502 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11467-021-1105-6

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Single-photon-level light storage with distributed Rydberg excitations in cold atoms

Hanxiao Zhang¹, Jinhui Wu¹(

), M. Artoni², G. C. La Rocca³

¹. Center for Quantum Sciences and School of Physics, Northeast Normal University, Changchun 130024, China
². Department of Engineering and Information Technology and Istituto Nazionale di Ottica (INO-CNR), Brescia University, 25133 Brescia, Italy
³. Scuola Normale Superiore and CNISM, 56126 Pisa, Italy

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Abstract

We present an improved version of the superatom (SA) model to examine the slow-light dynamics of a few-photons signal field in cold Rydberg atoms with van der Waals (vdW) interactions. A main feature of this version is that it promises consistent estimations on total Rydberg excitations based on dynamic equations of SAs or atoms. We consider two specific cases in which the incident signal field contains more photons with a smaller detuning or less photons with a larger detuning so as to realize the single-photon-level light storage. It is found that vdW interactions play a significant role even for the slow-light dynamics of a single-photon signal field as distributed Rydberg excitations are inevitable in the picture of dark-state polariton. Moreover, the stored (retrieved) signal field exhibits a clearly asymmetric (more symmetric) profile because its leading and trailing edges undergo different (identical) traveling journeys, and higher storage/retrieval efficiencies with well preserved profiles apply only to weaker and well detuned signal fields. These findings are crucial to understand the nontrivial interplay of single-photon-level light storage and distributed Rydberg excitations.

Keywords few-photons light storage distributed Rydberg excitation cold Rydberg atom improved superatom model

Corresponding Author(s): Jinhui Wu

Issue Date: 30 August 2021

Cite this article:

Hanxiao Zhang,Jinhui Wu,M. Artoni, et al. Single-photon-level light storage with distributed Rydberg excitations in cold atoms[J]. Front. Phys. , 2022, 17(2): 22502.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fop/EN/10.1007/s11467-021-1105-6
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fop/EN/Y2022/V17/I2/22502

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