ISSN 0253-2778

CN 34-1054/N

Open AccessOpen Access JUSTC Physics 27 April 2022

Size-reduction of Rydberg collective excited states in cold atomic system

Cite this:
https://doi.org/10.52396/JUSTC-2021-0239
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  • Author Bio:

    Dongsheng Ding is a Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). His recent interest fields are quantum simulation, quantum metrology by Rydberg atoms. He received his PhD degree from USTC in 2015. He has published more than 80 papers in international high-level journals including Sci. Adv., Nat. Photo., Nat. Comm., PRL, PRX, Light Sci. and App., and has obtained a series of original achievements

    Yichen Yu is a PhD graduate at the University of Science and Technology of China. His research field is light and atoms interaction

    Baosen Shi is a Professor at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). His research field is light and matter interaction. He received his PhD degree from USTC in 1998. He has published more than 100 papers in international high-level journals including Sci. Adv., Nat. Photo., Nat. Comm., PRL, PRX, Light Sci. and App., and has obtained a series of original achievements

  • Corresponding author: E-mail: dds@ustc.edu.cn; E-mail: drshi@ustc.edu.cn
  • Received Date: 16 November 2021
  • Accepted Date: 18 January 2022
  • Available Online: 27 April 2022
  • The collective effect of large amounts of atoms exhibit an enhanced interaction between light and atoms. This holds great interest in quantum optics, and quantum information. When a collective excited state of a group of atoms during Rabi oscillation is varying, the oscillation exhibits rich dynamics. Here, we experimentally observe a size-reduction effect of the Rydberg collective state during Rabi oscillation in cold atomic dilute gases. The Rydberg collective state was first created by the Rydberg quantum memory, and we observed a decreased oscillation frequency effect by measuring the time traces of the retrieved light field amplitude, which exhibited chirped characteristics. This is caused by the simultaneous decay to the overall ground state and the overall loss of atoms. The observed oscillations are dependent on the effective Rabi frequency and detuning of the coupling laser, and the dephasing from inhomogeneous broadening. The reported results show the potential prospects of studying the dynamics of the collective effect of a large amount of atoms and manipulating a single-photon wave-packet based on the interaction between light and Rydberg atoms.

      A size-reduction effect of the Rydberg collective state during Rabi oscillation. E-state: low-lying collective excited state. R-state: high-lying Rydberg collective excited state. Ωcoll: the effective Rabi frequency.

    The collective effect of large amounts of atoms exhibit an enhanced interaction between light and atoms. This holds great interest in quantum optics, and quantum information. When a collective excited state of a group of atoms during Rabi oscillation is varying, the oscillation exhibits rich dynamics. Here, we experimentally observe a size-reduction effect of the Rydberg collective state during Rabi oscillation in cold atomic dilute gases. The Rydberg collective state was first created by the Rydberg quantum memory, and we observed a decreased oscillation frequency effect by measuring the time traces of the retrieved light field amplitude, which exhibited chirped characteristics. This is caused by the simultaneous decay to the overall ground state and the overall loss of atoms. The observed oscillations are dependent on the effective Rabi frequency and detuning of the coupling laser, and the dephasing from inhomogeneous broadening. The reported results show the potential prospects of studying the dynamics of the collective effect of a large amount of atoms and manipulating a single-photon wave-packet based on the interaction between light and Rydberg atoms.

    • The Rydberg collective state is firstly created by Rydberg quantum memory, the authors demonstrate a decreased oscillation frequency effect via measuring time traces of the retrieved light field amplitude, exhibiting a chirped characteristic.
    • This many-body Rabi oscillation between a high-lying Rydberg collective excited state and low-lying collective excited state is accompanying with a radiated photon.
    • This experiment shows potential perspectives in manipulating single photon shape and controlling Rydberg superatoms.

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  • [1]
    Guerin W, Rouabah M T, Kaiser R. Light interacting with atomic ensembles: Collective, cooperative and mesoscopic effects. Journal of Modern Optics, 2017, 64: 895–907. doi: 10.1080/09500340.2016.1215564
    [2]
    Dicke R H. Coherence in spontaneous radiation processes. Physical Review, 1954, 93: 99–110. doi: 10.1103/PhysRev.93.99
    [3]
    Honer J, Löw R, Weimer H, et al. Artificial atoms can do more than atoms: Deterministic single photon subtraction from arbitrary light fields. Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107: 093601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.093601
    [4]
    Gaëtan A, Miroshnychenko Y, Wilk T, et al. Observation of collective excitation of two individual atoms in the Rydberg blockade regime. Nature Physics, 2009, 5: 115–118. doi: 10.1038/nphys1183
    [5]
    Urban E, Johnson T A, Henage T, et al. Observation of Rydberg blockade between two atoms. Nature Physics, 2009, 5: 110–114. doi: 10.1038/nphys1178
    [6]
    Dudin Y O, Li L, Bariani F, et al. Observation of coherent many-body Rabi oscillations. Nature Physics, 2012, 8: 790–794. doi: 10.1038/nphys2413
    [7]
    Zeiher J, Schauß P, Hild S, et al. Microscopic characterization of scalable coherent Rydberg superatoms. Physical Review X, 2015, 5: 031015. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.5.031015
    [8]
    Weber T M, Höning M, Niederprüm T, et al. Mesoscopic Rydberg-blockaded ensembles in the superatom regime and beyond. Nature Physics, 2015, 11: 157–161. doi: 10.1038/nphys3214
    [9]
    Beterov I I, Saffman M, Yakshina E A, et al. Simulated quantum process tomography of quantum gates with Rydberg superatoms. Journal of Physics B:Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2016, 49: 114007. doi: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/11/114007
    [10]
    Paris-Mandoki A, Braun C, Kumlin J, et al. Free space quantum electrodynamics with a single Rydberg superatom. Physical Review X, 2017, 7: 041010. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.7.041010
    [11]
    Busche H, Huillery P, Ball S W, et al. Contactless nonlinear optics mediated by long-range Rydberg interactions. Nature Physics, 2017, 13: 655–658. doi: 10.1038/nphys4058
    [12]
    Lukin M D, Fleischhauer M, Cote R, et al. Dipole blockade and quantum information processing in mesoscopic atomic ensembles. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2001, 87: 037901. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.037901
    [13]
    Saffman M. Quantum computing with atomic qubits and Rydberg interactions: Progress and challenges. Journal of Physics B:Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2016, 49: 202001. doi: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/20/202001
    [14]
    Firstenberg O, Adams C S, Hofferberth S. Nonlinear quantum optics mediated by Rydberg interactions. Journal of Physics B:Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2016, 49: 152003. doi: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/152003
    [15]
    Schauß P, Cheneau M, Endres M, et al. Observation of spatially ordered structures in a two-dimensional Rydberg gas. Nature, 2012, 491: 87–91. doi: 10.1038/nature11596
    [16]
    Labuhn H, Barredo D, Ravets S, et al. Tunable two-dimensional arrays of single Rydberg atoms for realizing quantum Ising models. Nature, 2016, 534: 667–680. doi: 10.1038/nature18274
    [17]
    Ding D S, Busche H, Shi B S, et al. Phase diagram and self-organizing dynamics in a thermal ensemble of strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. Physical Review X, 2020, 10: 021023. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.10.021023
    [18]
    Ding D S, Liu Z K, Busche H, et al. Epidemic spreading and herd immunity in a driven non-equilibrium system of strongly-interacting atoms. https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.12290.
    [19]
    Bussières F, Sangouard N, Afzelius M, et al. Prospective applications of optical quantum memories. Journal of Modern Optics, 2013, 60: 1519–1537. doi: 10.1080/09500340.2013.856482
    [20]
    Ding D S, Wang K, Zhang W, et al. Entanglement between low and high-lying atomic spin waves. Phys. Rev. A, 2016, 94: 052326. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.94.052326
    [21]
    Dudin Y O, Kuzmich A. Strongly interacting Rydberg excitations of a cold atomic gas. Science, 2012, 336: 887–889. doi: 10.1126/science.1217901
    [22]
    Ripka F, Kübler H, Löw R, et al. A room-temperature single-photon source based on strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. Science, 2018, 362: 446–449. doi: 10.1126/science.aau1949
    [23]
    Du S, Wen J, Rubin M H. Narrowband biphoton generation near atomic resonance. JOSA B, 2008, 25: C98–C108. doi: 10.1364/JOSAB.25.000C98
    [24]
    Mendes M S, Saldanha P L, Tabosa J W R, et al. Dynamics of the reading process of a quantum memory. New Journal of Physics, 2013, 15: 075030. doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/15/7/075030
    [25]
    De Oliveira R A, Mendes M S, Martins W S, et al. Single-photon superradiance in cold atoms. Physical Review A, 2014, 90: 023848. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.90.023848
    [26]
    Saffman M, Walker T G, Mølmer K. Quantum information with Rydberg atoms. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2010, 82: 2313–2363. doi: 10.1103/RevModPhys.82.2313
    [27]
    Fleischhauer M, Imamoglu A, Marangos J P. Electromagnetically induced transparency: Optics in coherent media. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2005, 77: 633–673. doi: 10.1103/RevModPhys.77.633
    [28]
    Ding D S, Zhou Z Y, Shi B S, et al. Single-photon-level quantum image memory based on cold atomic ensembles. Nature Communications, 2013, 4: 2527. doi: 10.1038/ncomms3527
    [29]
    Ding D S, Jiang Y K, Zhang W, et al. Optical precursor with four-wave mixing and storage based on a cold-atom ensemble. Physical Review Letters, 2015, 114: 093601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.093601
    [30]
    Ding D S, Zhang W, Zhou Z Y, et al. Raman quantum memory of photonic polarized entanglement. Nature Photonics, 2015, 9: 332–338. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2015.43
    [31]
    Tresp C. Rydberg polaritons and Rydberg superatoms: Novel tools for quantum nonlinear optics. Stuttgart, Germany: University of Stuttgart, 2017.
    [32]
    Novikova I, Gorshkov A V, Phillips D F, et al. Optimal control of light pulse storage and retrieval. Physical Review Letters, 2007, 98: 243602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.243602
    [33]
    Everett J L, Vernaz-Gris P, Campbell G T, et al. Time-reversed and coherently enhanced memory: A single-mode quantum atom-optic memory without a cavity. Physical Review A, 2018, 98: 063846. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.98.063846
    [34]
    Stanojevic J, Côté R. Many-body Rabi oscillations of Rydberg excitation in small mesoscopic samples. Physical Review A, 2009, 80: 033418. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.80.033418
    [35]
    De Léséleuc S, Barredo D, Lienhard V, et al. Analysis of imperfections in the coherent optical excitation of single atoms to Rydberg states. Physical Review A, 2018, 97: 053803. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.97.053803
    [36]
    Levine H, Keesling A, Omran A, et al. High-fidelity control and entanglement of Rydberg-atom qubits. Physical Review Letters, 2018, 121: 123603. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.123603
    [37]
    Yu Y C, Dong M X, Ye Y H, et al. Experimental demonstration of switching entangled photons based on the Rydberg blockade effect. Science China:Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, 2020, 63: 110312. doi: 10.1007/s11433-020-1602-1
    [38]
    Kolchin P, Belthangady C, Du S, et al. Electro-optic modulation of single photons. Physical Review Letters, 2008, 101: 103601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.103601
    [39]
    Specht H P, Bochmann J, Mücke M, et al. Phase shaping of single-photon wave packets. Nature Photonics, 2009, 3: 469–472. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.115
    [40]
    Chen J F, Zhang S, Yan H, et al. Shaping biphoton temporal waveforms with modulated classical fields. Physical Review Letters, 2010, 104: 183604. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.183604
    [41]
    Zhao L, Guo X, Sun Y, et al. Shaping the biphoton temporal waveform with spatial light modulation. Physical Review Letters, 2015, 115: 193601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.193601
    [42]
    Rakher M T, Ma L, Davan M, et al. Simultaneous wavelength translation and amplitude modulation of single photons from a quantum dot. Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107: 083602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.083602
    [43]
    Lavoie J, Donohue J M, Wright L G, et al. Spectral compression of single photons. Nature Photonics, 2013, 7: 363–366. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.47
  • 加载中

Catalog

    Figure  1.  Experimental setup and diagram.

    Figure  2.  Coherent retrieval signal with Rabi oscillations.

    Figure  3.  Measurement of retrieved probe field.

    Figure  4.  Measurement of retrieved probe field with different detuning $ \Delta_{c} $.

    [1]
    Guerin W, Rouabah M T, Kaiser R. Light interacting with atomic ensembles: Collective, cooperative and mesoscopic effects. Journal of Modern Optics, 2017, 64: 895–907. doi: 10.1080/09500340.2016.1215564
    [2]
    Dicke R H. Coherence in spontaneous radiation processes. Physical Review, 1954, 93: 99–110. doi: 10.1103/PhysRev.93.99
    [3]
    Honer J, Löw R, Weimer H, et al. Artificial atoms can do more than atoms: Deterministic single photon subtraction from arbitrary light fields. Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107: 093601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.093601
    [4]
    Gaëtan A, Miroshnychenko Y, Wilk T, et al. Observation of collective excitation of two individual atoms in the Rydberg blockade regime. Nature Physics, 2009, 5: 115–118. doi: 10.1038/nphys1183
    [5]
    Urban E, Johnson T A, Henage T, et al. Observation of Rydberg blockade between two atoms. Nature Physics, 2009, 5: 110–114. doi: 10.1038/nphys1178
    [6]
    Dudin Y O, Li L, Bariani F, et al. Observation of coherent many-body Rabi oscillations. Nature Physics, 2012, 8: 790–794. doi: 10.1038/nphys2413
    [7]
    Zeiher J, Schauß P, Hild S, et al. Microscopic characterization of scalable coherent Rydberg superatoms. Physical Review X, 2015, 5: 031015. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.5.031015
    [8]
    Weber T M, Höning M, Niederprüm T, et al. Mesoscopic Rydberg-blockaded ensembles in the superatom regime and beyond. Nature Physics, 2015, 11: 157–161. doi: 10.1038/nphys3214
    [9]
    Beterov I I, Saffman M, Yakshina E A, et al. Simulated quantum process tomography of quantum gates with Rydberg superatoms. Journal of Physics B:Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2016, 49: 114007. doi: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/11/114007
    [10]
    Paris-Mandoki A, Braun C, Kumlin J, et al. Free space quantum electrodynamics with a single Rydberg superatom. Physical Review X, 2017, 7: 041010. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.7.041010
    [11]
    Busche H, Huillery P, Ball S W, et al. Contactless nonlinear optics mediated by long-range Rydberg interactions. Nature Physics, 2017, 13: 655–658. doi: 10.1038/nphys4058
    [12]
    Lukin M D, Fleischhauer M, Cote R, et al. Dipole blockade and quantum information processing in mesoscopic atomic ensembles. Phys. Rev. Lett., 2001, 87: 037901. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.037901
    [13]
    Saffman M. Quantum computing with atomic qubits and Rydberg interactions: Progress and challenges. Journal of Physics B:Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2016, 49: 202001. doi: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/20/202001
    [14]
    Firstenberg O, Adams C S, Hofferberth S. Nonlinear quantum optics mediated by Rydberg interactions. Journal of Physics B:Atomic, Molecular and Optical Physics, 2016, 49: 152003. doi: 10.1088/0953-4075/49/15/152003
    [15]
    Schauß P, Cheneau M, Endres M, et al. Observation of spatially ordered structures in a two-dimensional Rydberg gas. Nature, 2012, 491: 87–91. doi: 10.1038/nature11596
    [16]
    Labuhn H, Barredo D, Ravets S, et al. Tunable two-dimensional arrays of single Rydberg atoms for realizing quantum Ising models. Nature, 2016, 534: 667–680. doi: 10.1038/nature18274
    [17]
    Ding D S, Busche H, Shi B S, et al. Phase diagram and self-organizing dynamics in a thermal ensemble of strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. Physical Review X, 2020, 10: 021023. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevX.10.021023
    [18]
    Ding D S, Liu Z K, Busche H, et al. Epidemic spreading and herd immunity in a driven non-equilibrium system of strongly-interacting atoms. https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.12290.
    [19]
    Bussières F, Sangouard N, Afzelius M, et al. Prospective applications of optical quantum memories. Journal of Modern Optics, 2013, 60: 1519–1537. doi: 10.1080/09500340.2013.856482
    [20]
    Ding D S, Wang K, Zhang W, et al. Entanglement between low and high-lying atomic spin waves. Phys. Rev. A, 2016, 94: 052326. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.94.052326
    [21]
    Dudin Y O, Kuzmich A. Strongly interacting Rydberg excitations of a cold atomic gas. Science, 2012, 336: 887–889. doi: 10.1126/science.1217901
    [22]
    Ripka F, Kübler H, Löw R, et al. A room-temperature single-photon source based on strongly interacting Rydberg atoms. Science, 2018, 362: 446–449. doi: 10.1126/science.aau1949
    [23]
    Du S, Wen J, Rubin M H. Narrowband biphoton generation near atomic resonance. JOSA B, 2008, 25: C98–C108. doi: 10.1364/JOSAB.25.000C98
    [24]
    Mendes M S, Saldanha P L, Tabosa J W R, et al. Dynamics of the reading process of a quantum memory. New Journal of Physics, 2013, 15: 075030. doi: 10.1088/1367-2630/15/7/075030
    [25]
    De Oliveira R A, Mendes M S, Martins W S, et al. Single-photon superradiance in cold atoms. Physical Review A, 2014, 90: 023848. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.90.023848
    [26]
    Saffman M, Walker T G, Mølmer K. Quantum information with Rydberg atoms. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2010, 82: 2313–2363. doi: 10.1103/RevModPhys.82.2313
    [27]
    Fleischhauer M, Imamoglu A, Marangos J P. Electromagnetically induced transparency: Optics in coherent media. Reviews of Modern Physics, 2005, 77: 633–673. doi: 10.1103/RevModPhys.77.633
    [28]
    Ding D S, Zhou Z Y, Shi B S, et al. Single-photon-level quantum image memory based on cold atomic ensembles. Nature Communications, 2013, 4: 2527. doi: 10.1038/ncomms3527
    [29]
    Ding D S, Jiang Y K, Zhang W, et al. Optical precursor with four-wave mixing and storage based on a cold-atom ensemble. Physical Review Letters, 2015, 114: 093601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.114.093601
    [30]
    Ding D S, Zhang W, Zhou Z Y, et al. Raman quantum memory of photonic polarized entanglement. Nature Photonics, 2015, 9: 332–338. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2015.43
    [31]
    Tresp C. Rydberg polaritons and Rydberg superatoms: Novel tools for quantum nonlinear optics. Stuttgart, Germany: University of Stuttgart, 2017.
    [32]
    Novikova I, Gorshkov A V, Phillips D F, et al. Optimal control of light pulse storage and retrieval. Physical Review Letters, 2007, 98: 243602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.98.243602
    [33]
    Everett J L, Vernaz-Gris P, Campbell G T, et al. Time-reversed and coherently enhanced memory: A single-mode quantum atom-optic memory without a cavity. Physical Review A, 2018, 98: 063846. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.98.063846
    [34]
    Stanojevic J, Côté R. Many-body Rabi oscillations of Rydberg excitation in small mesoscopic samples. Physical Review A, 2009, 80: 033418. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.80.033418
    [35]
    De Léséleuc S, Barredo D, Lienhard V, et al. Analysis of imperfections in the coherent optical excitation of single atoms to Rydberg states. Physical Review A, 2018, 97: 053803. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevA.97.053803
    [36]
    Levine H, Keesling A, Omran A, et al. High-fidelity control and entanglement of Rydberg-atom qubits. Physical Review Letters, 2018, 121: 123603. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.121.123603
    [37]
    Yu Y C, Dong M X, Ye Y H, et al. Experimental demonstration of switching entangled photons based on the Rydberg blockade effect. Science China:Physics, Mechanics & Astronomy, 2020, 63: 110312. doi: 10.1007/s11433-020-1602-1
    [38]
    Kolchin P, Belthangady C, Du S, et al. Electro-optic modulation of single photons. Physical Review Letters, 2008, 101: 103601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.101.103601
    [39]
    Specht H P, Bochmann J, Mücke M, et al. Phase shaping of single-photon wave packets. Nature Photonics, 2009, 3: 469–472. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2009.115
    [40]
    Chen J F, Zhang S, Yan H, et al. Shaping biphoton temporal waveforms with modulated classical fields. Physical Review Letters, 2010, 104: 183604. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.104.183604
    [41]
    Zhao L, Guo X, Sun Y, et al. Shaping the biphoton temporal waveform with spatial light modulation. Physical Review Letters, 2015, 115: 193601. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.115.193601
    [42]
    Rakher M T, Ma L, Davan M, et al. Simultaneous wavelength translation and amplitude modulation of single photons from a quantum dot. Physical Review Letters, 2011, 107: 083602. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.083602
    [43]
    Lavoie J, Donohue J M, Wright L G, et al. Spectral compression of single photons. Nature Photonics, 2013, 7: 363–366. doi: 10.1038/nphoton.2013.47

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