TECH

Hard drive for light stores quantum information

HD light
Physicists at the University of Alberta in Canada have developed a new way of building quantum memories, a method for storing the delicate quantum information encoded in pulses of light."This experiment involved picking up short pulses of light, in which we can encode quantum information, store light in atoms, and retrieve the original pulse containing information," explained physicist Erhan Saglamyurek."We have developed a new way of storing pulses of light at the single photon level in clouds of ultraviolet rubidium atoms and later retrieving them on demand by firing a pulse of control light," said Professor Lindsay LeBlanc.Quantum memories are an essential component of computers and quantum networks, just as RAM and hard drives are for today's computers.With the practical applications of quantum computing already reaching the fiber-optic networks, storing quantum data efficiently is increasingly urgent to make the leap into a quantum internet and other secure communication methods.

Quantum scalability
While still limited to the cryogenic environment, like most quantum technologies, the great advantage of the new technique is its scalability, which allows it to be developed for larger scale devices, the team says.The method, which is most suitable for applications requiring high speed of operation, also has considerably lower technical requirements than those required in ordinary quantum storage techniques."The amount of energy required, for example, is significantly lower than the current options, and these smaller requirements make it easier to implement in other laboratories," said Saglamyurek.



Bibliography:Authorship-Townes splitting and manipulation of broadband photons via dynamically controlled Autler-Townes splitting
Erhan Saglamyurek, Taras Hrushevskyi, Anindya Rastogi, Khabat Heshami, Lindsay J. LeBlanc
Nature Photonics