Rydberg systems: from the exotic to applications
Rydberg atoms has emerged as a versatile platform for different applications in quantum technology from computing and simulation to sensing and imaging [1]. In this talk, I will briefly mention the different Rydberg projects in Durham, and then focus on our recent work on Rydberg quantum optics. In this experiment, we store optical photons in a cold atomic ensemble in the form of Rydberg polaritons. In recent work, we have looked at the potential of Rydberg polaritons in the context of quantum information. We show that Rydberg polaritons have a number of attractive features: The large dipole moments between Rydberg states enables fast single-qubit rotations that are independent of atoms number. The combined atomic and photonic character of the polariton [2] allows fast photonic read-out of the quantum state. Finally, as the quantum information is shared amongst many atoms, there is an in-built robustness to atom loss [3]. Experiments on the extension to higher dimensions, photonic qutrits, will be presented.
References
[1] CS Adams et al, Rydberg atom quantum technologies, J Phys B 53, 012002 (2019).
[2] Y Jiao et al, Single-photon stored-light interferometry, Opt Lett 45, 5888 (2020).
[3]NLR Spong et al, The Robustness of a Collectively Encoded Rydberg Qubit, arXiv:2010.11794 (2020).
