Long-lived telecom-heralded single-photon storage in an absorptive spin-rephased quantum memory
Abstract
Long-lived storage of single photons under the form of atomic excitations is at the foundation of long-distance entanglement distribution in quantum networks. To mitigate decoherence effects induced by the environment, rephasing of the hyperfine coherences using microwave pulses have been implemented in a variety of single-emitter and ensemble-based solid-state systems. However, the demonstration of storage of single photons in an absorptive quantum memory including such spin rephasing mechanism remains elusive. In this work, we show non-classical storage of telecom-heralded single photons in a Pr3+:Y2SiO5 rare-earth ion doped crystal quantum memory using the atomic frequency comb (AFC) spin-wave protocol combined with a XY4 spin rephasing sequence. Long-lived AFC photon echoes are first observed in the classical regime for storage times of up to approximately 3 ms. We then demonstrate non-classical correlations between heralding photons and stored signal photons generated by a cavity-enhanced parametric photon-pair source for storage times of up to 180 μs and with measured cross-correlation values as high as 4.6(4). Together with the capacity of Pr3+:Y2SiO5 QMs to support highly efficient and multiplexed storage, this result represents a significant step towards scalable long-distance quantum repeater links.
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BibTeX
@misc{rodriguezmoldes2026longlived,
title = {{Long-lived telecom-heralded single-photon storage in an absorptive spin-rephased quantum memory}},
author = {Alberto E. Rodríguez-Moldes and Félicien Appas and Jonathan Hänni and Jelena V. Rakonjac and Samuele Grandi and Hugues de Riedmatten},
howpublished = {arXiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.48550/arxiv.2609.02579},
eprint = {2609.02579},
archivePrefix = {arXiv},
url = {https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.02579},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Long-lived telecom-heralded single-photon storage in an absorptive spin-rephased quantum memory
AU - Alberto E. Rodríguez-Moldes
AU - Félicien Appas
AU - Jonathan Hänni
AU - Jelena V. Rakonjac
AU - Samuele Grandi
AU - Hugues de Riedmatten
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/02
PB - arXiv
DO - 10.48550/arxiv.2609.02579
UR - https://arxiv.org/abs/2609.02579
AB - Long-lived storage of single photons under the form of atomic excitations is at the foundation of long-distance entanglement distribution in quantum networks. To mitigate decoherence effects induced by the environment, rephasing of the hyperfine coherences using microwave pulses have been implemented in a variety of single-emitter and ensemble-based solid-state systems. However, the demonstration of storage of single photons in an absorptive quantum memory including such spin rephasing mechanism remains elusive. In this work, we show non-classical storage of telecom-heralded single photons in a Pr^3+:Y_2SiO_5 rare-earth ion doped crystal quantum memory using the atomic frequency comb (AFC) spin-wave protocol combined with a XY4 spin rephasing sequence. Long-lived AFC photon echoes are first observed in the classical regime for storage times of up to approximately 3 ms. We then demonstrate non-classical correlations between heralding photons and stored signal photons generated by a cavity-enhanced parametric photon-pair source for storage times of up to 180 μs and with measured cross-correlation values as high as 4.6(4). Together with the capacity of Pr^3+:Y_2SiO_5 QMs to support highly efficient and multiplexed storage, this result represents a significant step towards scalable long-distance quantum repeater links.
ER -