Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Letter
  • Published:

Electromagnetically induced transparency with tunable single-photon pulses

Nature volume 438, pages 837–841 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

Techniques to facilitate controlled interactions between single photons and atoms are now being actively explored1,2,3,4,5,6,7. These techniques are important for the practical realization of quantum networks, in which multiple memory nodes that utilize atoms for generation, storage and processing of quantum states are connected by single-photon transmission in optical fibres1,2. One promising avenue for the realization of quantum networks involves the manipulation of quantum pulses of light in optically dense atomic ensembles using electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT, refs 8, 9). EIT is a coherent control technique that is widely used for controlling the propagation of classical, multi-photon light pulses10,11,12,13,14 in applications such as efficient nonlinear optics15. Here we demonstrate the use of EIT for the controllable generation, transmission and storage of single photons with tunable frequency, timing and bandwidth. We study the interaction of single photons produced in a ‘source’ ensemble of 87Rb atoms at room temperature with another ‘target’ ensemble. This allows us to simultaneously probe the spectral and quantum statistical properties of narrow-bandwidth single-photon pulses, revealing that their quantum nature is preserved under EIT propagation and storage. We measure the time delay associated with the reduced group velocity of the single-photon pulses and report observations of their storage and retrieval.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Experimental procedure and set-up.
Figure 2: Observation of conditional single-photon generation.
Figure 3: Observation of single-photon EIT.
Figure 4: Time-resolved measurements of single-photon pulse delay and storage.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Briegel, H. J., Dur, W., van Enk, S. J., Cirac, J. I. & Zoller, P. in The Physics of Quantum Information (eds Bouwmeester, D., Ekert, A. & Zeilinger, A.) 281–293 (Springer, Berlin, 2000)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Duan, L. M., Lukin, M. D., Cirac, J. I. & Zoller, P. Long-distance quantum communication with atomic ensembles and linear optics. Nature 414, 413–418 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Kuzmich, A. et al. Generation of nonclassical photon pairs for scalable quantum communication with atomic ensembles. Nature 423, 731–734 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. van der Wal, C. H. et al. Atomic memory for correlated photon states. Science 301, 196–200 (2003)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. McKeever, J. et al. Deterministic generation of single photons from one atom trapped in a cavity. Science 303, 1992–1994 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Kuhn, A., Hennrich, M. & Rempe, G. Deterministic single-photon source for distributed quantum networking. Phys. Rev. Lett. 89, 067901 (2002)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Julsgaard, B., Sherson, J., Cirac, J. I., Fiurasek, J. & Polzik, E. S. Experimental demonstration of quantum memory for light. Nature 432, 482–486 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Harris, S. E. Electromagnetically induced transparency. Phys. Today 50, 36–42 (1997)

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Fleischhauer, M., Imamoglu, A. & Marangos, J. P. Electromagnetically induced transparency: Optics in coherent media. Rev. Mod. Phys. 77, 633–673 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Hau, L. V., Harris, S. E., Dutton, Z. & Behroozi, C. H. Light speed reduction to 17 metres per second in an ultracold atomic gas. Nature 397, 594–598 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Kash, M. M. et al. Ultraslow group velocity and enhanced nonlinear optical effects in a coherently driven hot atomic gas. Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 5229–5232 (1999)

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Phillips, D. F., Fleischhauer, A., Mair, A., Walsworth, R. L. & Lukin, M. D. Storage of light in atomic vapor. Phys. Rev. Lett. 86, 783–786 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Liu, C., Dutton, Z., Behroozi, C. H. & Hau, L. V. Observation of coherent optical information storage in an atomic medium using halted light pulses. Nature 409, 490–493 (2001)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Longdell, J. J., Fraval, E., Sellars, M. J. & Manson, N. B. Stopped light with storage times greater than one second using electromagnetically induced transparency in a solid. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 063601 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  15. Braje, D. A., Balić, V., Yin, G. Y. & Harris, S. E. Low-light-level nonlinear optics with slow light. Phys. Rev. A 68, 041801(R) (2003)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  16. Chou, C. W., Polyakov, S. V., Kuzmich, A. & Kimble, H. J. Single-photon generation from stored excitation in an atomic ensemble. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 213601 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Eisaman, M. D. et al. Shaping quantum pulses of light via coherent atomic memory. Phys. Rev. Lett. 93, 233602 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Jiang, W., Han, C., Xue, P., Duan, L.-M. & Guo, G.-C. Nonclassical photon pairs generated from a room-temperature atomic ensemble. Phys. Rev. A 69, 043819 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  19. Balić, V., Braje, D. A., Kolchin, P., Yin, G. Y. & Harris, S. E. Generation of paired photons with controllable waveforms. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 183601 (2005)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Matsukevich, D. N. & Kuzmich, A. Quantum state transfer between matter and light. Science 306, 663–666 (2004)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Matsukevich, D. N. et al. Entanglement of a photon and a collective atomic excitation. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 040405 (2005)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Mandel, L. & Wolf, E. Optical Coherence and Quantum Optics (Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, 1995)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  23. Michler, P. et al. A quantum dot single-photon turnstile device. Science 290, 2282–2285 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Eisaman, M. D. et al. in Fluctuations and Noise in Photonics and Quantum Optics III Vol. 5,842 (eds Hemmer, P. R., Gea-Banacloche, J. R., Heszler, P. & Zubairy, M. S.) 105–113 (SPIE, Bellingham, Washington, 2005)

    Book  Google Scholar 

  25. Fleischhauer, M. & Lukin, M. D. Dark-state polaritons in electromagnetically induced transparency. Phys. Rev. Lett. 84, 5094–5097 (2000)

    Article  ADS  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  26. Akamatsu, D., Akiba, K. & Kozuma, M. Electromagnetically induced transparency with squeezed vacuum. Phys. Rev. Lett. 92, 203602 (2004)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Black, A. T., Thompson, J. K. & Vuletić, V. On-demand superradiant conversion of atomic spin gratings into single photons with high efficiency. Phys. Rev. Lett. 95, 133601 (2005)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  28. Scully, M. O. & Ooi, C. H. R. Improving quantum microscopy and lithography via Raman photon pairs: II. Analysis. J. Opt. B 6, S816–S820 (2004)

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  29. André, A., Bajcsy, M., Zibrov, A. S. & Lukin, M. D. Nonlinear optics with stationary pulses of light. Phys. Rev. Lett. 94, 063902 (2005)

    Article  ADS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  30. André, A. Nonclassical States of Light and Atomic Ensembles: Generation and New Applications PhD thesis, Harvard Univ. (2005)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge T. Zibrova, A. Gorshkov, P. Hemmer, J. MacArthur, D. Phillips and R. Walsworth for discussions and experimental help. This work was supported by DARPA, the Packard and Sloan Foundations, and the NSF through the CAREER programme and the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold Atoms.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Physics Department, Harvard University,

    M. D. Eisaman, A. André, F. Massou, M. Fleischhauer, A. S. Zibrov & M. D. Lukin

  2. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Massachusetts, 02138, Cambridge, USA

    M. Fleischhauer & A. S. Zibrov

  3. Fachbereich Physik, Technische Universität Kaiserslautern, D-67663, Kaiserslautern, Germany

    M. Fleischhauer

  4. P. N. Lebedev Institute of Physics, 117924, Moscow, Russia

    A. S. Zibrov

Authors
  1. M. D. Eisaman
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. A. André
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. F. Massou
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. M. Fleischhauer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. A. S. Zibrov
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. M. D. Lukin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to M. D. Eisaman.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

Reprints and permissions information is available at npg.nature.com/reprintsandpermissions. The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Eisaman, M., André, A., Massou, F. et al. Electromagnetically induced transparency with tunable single-photon pulses. Nature 438, 837–841 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04327

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nature04327

This article is cited by

Comments

By submitting a comment you agree to abide by our Terms and Community Guidelines. If you find something abusive or that does not comply with our terms or guidelines please flag it as inappropriate.

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing