http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051213082424.htmhttp://gtresearchnews.gatech.edu/newsrelease/quantum-memory.htmSource: Georgia Institute of Technology
Date: 2005-12-13
URL:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051213082424.htm --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Quantum Memory: Physicists Demonstrate Storage And Retrieval Of Single Photons Between Remote Memories
A series of publications in the journal Nature highlights the race among competing research groups toward the long-anticipated goal of quantum networking.
In one of three papers published the journal's December 8 issue, a group of physicists from the Georgia Institute of Technology led by Professors Alex Kuzmich and Brian Kennedy describes the storage and retrieval of single photons transmitted between remote quantum memories composed of rubidium atoms. The work represents a significant step toward quantum communication and computation networks that would store and process information using both photons and atoms.
But the researchers caution that even with their rudimentary network operation, practical applications for quantum networking remain a long way off.
"The controlled transfer of single quanta between remote quantum memories is an important step toward distributed quantum networks," said Alex Kuzmich, the Cullen-Peck Assistant Professor in Georgia Tech's School of Physics. "But this is still a building block. It will take a lot of steps and several more years for this to happen in a practical way."
Slightly more than a year ago in a paper published in the journal Science, Kuzmich and collaborator Dzmitry Matsukevich described transferring atomic state information from two different clouds of rubidium atoms onto a single photon. That work was the first time that quantum information had been transferred from matter to light. <snip>