Photonic quantum memory, such as an atomic frequency comb (AFC), is essential to make photonic quantum computation and long distance quantum communication scalable and feasible. In standard AFC the frequency of different atoms must be stable relative to each other which presents difficulties in realizing the quantum memory. Here we propose a quantum memory using an intra-atomic frequency comb which does not require frequency stabilization. We show that the transitions between two degenerate energy levels of a single atom can be used to construct the frequency comb. The spacing between the teeth of the comb is controlled by applying an external magnetic field. Since the frequency comb is constructed from individual atoms, these atoms can be used alone or in ensembles to realize the quantum memory. Furthermore, the ensemble based quantum memory with intra-AFC is robust against Doppler broadening which makes it useful for high-temperature quantum memory. As an example, we numerically show the intra-AFC in cesium atoms and demonstrate a photon echo which is essential for quantum memory. arXiv:1810.07617v2 [quant-ph]
In this article, we study the effect of various environmental factors on intra-atomic frequency comb (I-AFC) based quantum memory. The effect of the environment is incorporated as random fluctuations and non-uniformity in the parameters such as comb spacing and the optical depth, of the frequency comb. We found that the I-AFC is viable for photon storage even for very large fluctuations in the parameters of the frequency comb, which makes I-AFC a robust platform for photon storage. Furthermore, we show that the non-uniform frequency combs without any fluctuations in the comb parameters can also yield efficient quantum memory. Since the intra-atomic frequency combs found in natural atomic systems are often non-uniform, our results suggest that a large class of these systems can be used for I-AFC based efficient quantum memory.
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