An elementary quantum network of single atoms in optical cavities

By S. Ritter, C. Nölleke, C. Hahn, A. Reiserer, A. Neuzner, M. Uphoff, M. Mücke, E. Figueroa, J. Bochmann, G. Rempe. Nature, 2012

879 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Quantum networks are distributed quantum many-body systems with tailored topology and controlled information exchange. They are the backbone of distributed quantum computing architectures and quantum communication. Here we present a prototype of such a quantum network based on single atoms embedded in optical cavities. We show that atom–cavity systems form universal nodes capable of sending, receiving, storing and releasing photonic quantum information. Quantum connectivity between nodes is achieved in the conceptually most fundamental way—by the coherent exchange of a single photon. We demonstrate the faithful transfer of an atomic quantum state and the creation of entanglement between two identical nodes in separate laboratories. The non-local state that is created is manipulated by local quantum bit (qubit) rotation. This efficient cavity-based approach to quantum networking is particularly promising because it offers a clear perspective for scalability, thus paving the way towards large-scale quantum networks and their applications.

Subfields: Artificial Intelligence, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/006f4c3fe12c2da2b35bffd8ec7925839b2067c1

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Citations in the corpus

A link layer protocol for quantum networks (2019, background): “in principle also transferred [52, 66, 75] from fiber into the node’s local quantum memory.”
Continuous mode cooling and phonon routers for phononic quantum networks (2012, background): “The phonon network described above is formally equivalent to optical quantum networks and can in principle be used in a similar way to transfer quantum states from one node to another [29, 31].”
Nonlinear π phase shift for single fibre-guided photons interacting with a single resonator-enhanced atom (2014, background): “= 1 2 aVa † D − a † Ha † D ( ) |0〉 (1)”
Prospective applications of optical quantum memories (2013, background): “ delity of 93% and a storage time of 180 s was obtained. The same group demonstrated later an elementary quantum network using two single-atom quantum memories in separate atom traps distant by 21 m [71]. They achieved quantum state transfer and entanglement between the two atoms by transmission of ”
Heralded entanglement between solid-state qubits separated by three metres (2012, background): “Such capabilities are particularly useful when the entangled qubits are spatially separated [3–5], opening the opportunity to create highly connected quantum networks [6] or extend quantum cryptography to long distances [7, 8].”
Loophole-free Bell inequality violation using electron spins separated by 1.3 kilometres (2015, result): “We note that the distance between the entangled electrons is nearly two orders of magnitude larger than in any previous experiment[30] with entangled matter systems.”
Quantum internet: A vision for the road ahead (2018, background): “The generation of photon-mediated entanglement between distant matter qubits has been achieved with trapped ions (72), atoms (73, 74), nitrogen-vacancy (N-V) centers indiamond (75), and semiconductor quantum dots (76, 77) over distances up to 1.”
Quantum matter built from nanoscopic lattices of atoms and photons (2018, background): “…have been spectacular demonstrations as diverse as single-photon switching (O’Shea et al., 2013; Shomroni et al., 2014) and basic quantum networks (Ritter et al., 2012) using atoms coupled to high-finesse optical cavities, and quantum memories for light (Liu et al., 2001; Phillips et al., 2001;…”
Bidirectional and efficient conversion between microwave and optical light (2013, background): “[7] Stephan Ritter, Christian Nolleke, Carolin Hahn, Andreas Reiserer, Andreas Neuzner, Manuel Uphoff, Martin Mcke, Eden Figueroa, Joerg Bochmann, and Gerhard Rempe, “An elementary quantum network of single atoms in optical cavities,” Nature 484, 195–200 (2012).”
Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage in physics, chemistry, and beyond (2016, background): “Ritter et al. (2012) proposed a quantum network architecture based on single atoms embedded in optical cavities.”