Xu Biao, Ye Gen-Sheng, Chang Yue, Shi Tao, Li Lin
MOE Key Laboratory of Fundamental Physical Quantities Measurement, Hubei Key Laboratory of Gravitation and Quantum Physics, PGMF, Institute for Quantum Science and Engineering, School of Physics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, Wuhan 430074, People's Republic of China.
Beijing Automation Control Equipment Institute, Beijing 100074, People's Republic of China.
Rep Prog Phys. 2024 Oct 23;87(11). doi: 10.1088/1361-6633/ad847e.
Extending optical nonlinearity into the extremely weak light regime is at the heart of quantum optics, since it enables the efficient generation of photonic entanglement and implementation of photonic quantum logic gate. Here, we demonstrate the capability for continuously tunable single-photon level nonlinearity, enabled by precise control of Rydberg interaction over two orders of magnitude, through the use of microwave-assisted wave-function engineering. To characterize this nonlinearity, light storage and retrieval protocol utilizing Rydberg electromagnetically induced transparency is employed, and the quantum statistics of the retrieved photons are analyzed. As a first application, we demonstrate our protocol can speed up the preparation of single photons in low-lying Rydberg states by a factor of up to∼40. Our work holds the potential to accelerate quantum operations and to improve the circuit depth and connectivity in Rydberg systems, representing a crucial step towards scalable quantum information processing with Rydberg atoms.
将光学非线性扩展到极弱光领域是量子光学的核心，因为它能够高效地产生光子纠缠并实现光子量子逻辑门。在此，我们展示了通过利用微波辅助波函数工程对里德堡相互作用进行两个数量级的精确控制，实现连续可调单光子水平非线性的能力。为了表征这种非线性，我们采用了利用里德堡电磁诱导透明的光存储和检索协议，并分析了检索光子的量子统计特性。作为第一个应用，我们证明我们的协议可以将低能里德堡态单光子的制备速度提高多达约40倍。我们的工作有潜力加速量子操作，并改善里德堡系统中的电路深度和连通性，这是朝着利用里德堡原子进行可扩展量子信息处理迈出的关键一步。
