Large index of refraction without absorption via decay-induced coherence in a three-level V system

We study the effects of quantum interference from spontaneous emission on the dispersion-absorption properties in a three-level V-type atomic system with two near-degenerate excited levels. We found that due to the quantum interference between two spontaneous decay channels, large index of refraction without absorption always can be obtained just by choosing proper values of the relative phase between the two applied fields.Received: 27 February 2004, Published online: 26 May 2004PACS: 42.50.Gy Effects of atomic coherence on propagation, absorption, and amplification of light; electromagnetically induced transparency and absorption - 42.50.Hz Strong-field excitation of optical transitions in quantum systems; multiphoton processes; dynamic Stark shift     

Quantifying quantum correlation via quantum coherence

Resource theory is applied to quantify the quantum correlation of a bipartite state and a computable measure is proposed. Since this measure is based on quantum coherence, we present another possible physical meaning for quantum correlation, i.e., the minimum quantum coherence achieved under local unitary transformations. This measure satisfies the basic requirements for quantifying quantum correlation and coincides with concurrence for pure states. Since no optimization is involved in the final definition, this measure is easy to compute irrespective of the Hilbert space dimension of the bipartite state.     

Experimental demonstration of ray-optical refraction with confocal lenslet arrays

We observe imaging through windows comprising pairs of confocal lenslet arrays that have different focal lengths but that are otherwise identical. Image space is stretched in the longitudinal direction only. Such windows are examples of METATOYs, optical components that can change light-ray direction in ways that appear wave-optically forbidden.     

Experimental demonstration of counterfactual quantum communication

Quantum effects, besides offering substantial superiority in many tasks over classical methods, are also expected to provide interesting ways to establish secret keys between remote parties. A striking scheme called "counterfactual quantum cryptography" proposed by Noh [Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 230501 (2009).] allows one to maintain secure key distributions, in which particles carrying secret information are seemingly not being transmitted through quantum channels. We have experimentally demonstrated, for the first time, a faithful implementation for such a scheme with an on-table realization operating at telecom wavelengths. To verify its feasibility for extension over a long distance, we have furthermore reported an illustration on a 1?km fiber. In both cases, high visibilities of more than 98% are achieved through active stabilization of interferometers. Our demonstration is crucial as a direct verification of such a remarkable application, and this procedure can become a key communication module for revealing fundamental physics through counterfactuals.     

Experimental demonstration of quantum source coding

We report an experimental demonstration of Schumacher's quantum noiseless coding theorem. Our experiment employs a sequence of single photons, each of which represents three qubits in terms of eight spatial and polarization modes. We initially prepare each photon in one of a set of eight nonorthogonal code word states corresponding to the value of a block of three binary letters. We use quantum coding to compress this quantum data into a two-qubit quantum channel and then uncompress the two-qubit channel to restore the original data with a fidelity approaching the theoretical limit.     

Experimental demonstration of probabilistic quantum cloning

The method of quantum cloning is divided into two main categories: approximate and probabilistic quantum cloning. The former method is used to approximate an unknown quantum state deterministically, and the latter can be used to faithfully copy the state probabilistically. Thus far, many approximate cloning machines have been experimentally demonstrated, but probabilistic cloning remains an experimental challenge, as it requires more complicated networks and a higher level of precision control. In this work, we design an efficient quantum network with a limited amount of resources and perform the first experimental demonstration of probabilistic quantum cloning in a NMR quantum computer. In our experiment, the optimal cloning efficiency proposed by Duan and Guo [Phys. Rev. Lett. 80, 4999 (1998)] is achieved.     

Slow light propagation via quantum coherence in a semiconductor quantum well

With the Schrödinger equations, we investigate the low-intensity light pulse propagation through a semiconductor quantum wells. Through studying the dispersion and absorption properties of the weak probe field, it is shown that slow light propagation is observed in this system. From the view point of practical purpose, it is more advantageous than its corresponding atomic system. Such investigation of slow light propagation may lead to important practical applications in semiconductor quantum information.     

Experimental demonstration of four-party quantum secret sharing

Secret sharing is a multiparty cryptographic task in which some secret information is split into several pieces which are distributed among the participants such that only an authorized set of participants can reconstruct the original secret. Similar to quantum key distribution, in quantum secret sharing, the secrecy of the shared information relies not on computational assumptions, but on laws of quantum physics. Here, we present an experimental demonstration of four-party quantum secret sharing via the resource of four-photon entanglement.     

Experimental demonstration of continuous variable quantum erasing

We experimentally demonstrate the concept of continuous variable quantum erasing. The amplitude quadrature of the signal state is labeled to another state via a quantum nondemolition interaction, leading to a large uncertainty in the determination of the phase quadrature due to the inextricable complementarity of the two observables. We show that by erasing the amplitude quadrature information we are able to recover the phase quadrature information of the signal state.     

Experimental demonstration of fully coherent quantum feedback

In the conventional picture of quantum feedback, control sensors make measurements on a quantum system, a classical controller processes the results of the measurements, and semiclassical actuators act back on the system to alter its behavior. We describe and provide an experimental demonstration of an alternative method for quantum feedback control, in which the sensors, controller, and actuators of conventional feedback control are replaced with quantum systems that interact coherently with the system to be controlled. The resulting control system represents a fully coherent quantum feedback loop.     

Experimental demonstration of counterfactual quantum key distribution

Counterfactual quantum key distribution provides natural advantage against the eavesdropping on the actual signal particles. It can prevent the photon-number-splitting attack when a weak coherent light source is used for the practical implementation. We experimentally realized the counterfactual quantum key distribution in an unbalanced Mach-Zehnder interferometer of 12.5-km-long quantum channel with a high-fringe visibility of 97.4%. According to the security analysis, the system was robust against the photon-number-splitting attack. The article is published in the original.     

Nonperturbative quantum calculation of the index of refraction of multilevel systems

We calculate the index of refraction (n) nonperturbatively for a multilevel ladder of states, and show that the dependence of n on the strength of an applied laser field departs qualitatively from that expected for a two-level system and employed in previous phenomenological models of self-focusing.     

Enhancement of charging performance of quantum battery via quantum coherence of bath

An open quantum battery (QB) model of a single qubit system charging in a coherent auxiliary bath (CAB) consisting of a series of independent coherent ancillae is considered. According to the collision charging protocol we derive a quantum master equation and obtain the analytical solution of QB in a steady state. We find that the full charging capacity (or the maximal extractable work (MEW)) of QB, in the weak QB-ancilla coupling limit, is positively correlated with the coherence magnitude of ancilla. Combining with the numerical simulations we compare with the charging properties of QB at finite coupling strength, such as the MEW, average charging power and the charging efficiency, when considering the bath to be a thermal auxiliary bath (TAB) and a CAB, respectively. We find that when the QB with CAB, in the weak coupling regime, is in fully charging, both its capacity and charging efficiency can go beyond its classical counterpart, and they increase with the increase of coherence magnitude of ancilla. In addition, the MEW of QB in the regime of relative strong coupling and strong coherent magnitude shows the oscillatory behavior with the charging time increasing, and the first peak value can even be larger than the full charging MEW of QB. This also leads to a much larger average charging power than that of QB with TAB in a short-time charging process. These features suggest that with the help of quantum coherence of CAB it becomes feasible to switch the charging schemes between the long-time slow charging protocol with large capacity and high efficiency and the short-time rapid charging protocol with highly charging power only by adjusting the coupling strength of QB-ancilla. This work clearly demonstrates that the quantum coherence of bath can not only serve as the role of "fuel" of QB to be utilized to improve the QB's charging performance but also provide an alternative way to integrate the different charging protocols into a single QB.     

Experimental demonstration of quantum teleportation of broadband squeezing

We demonstrate an unconditional high-fidelity teleporter capable of preserving the broadband entanglement in an optical squeezed state. In particular, we teleport a squeezed state of light and observe -0.8+/-0.2 dB of squeezing in the teleported (output) state. We show that the squeezing criterion translates directly into a sufficient criterion for entanglement of the upper and lower sidebands of the optical field. Thus, this result demonstrates the first unconditional teleportation of broadband entanglement. Our teleporter achieves sufficiently high fidelity to allow the teleportation to be cascaded, enabling, in principle, the construction of deterministic non-Gaussian operations.     

Strongly enhanced spin squeezing via quantum control

We describe a new approach to spin squeezing based on a double-pass Faraday interaction between an optical probe and an optically dense atomic sample. A quantum eraser is used to remove residual spin-probe entanglement, thereby realizing a single-axis twisting unitary map on the collective spin. This interaction can be phase matched, resulting in exponential enhancement of squeezing as a function of optical density for times short compared to the decoherence time. In practice the scaling and peak squeezing depends on decoherence, technical loss, and noise. Including these imperfections, our model indicates that ～10 dB of squeezing should be achievable with laboratory parameters.     

Experimental demonstration of coherent coupling of two quantum dots

During the recent years semiconductor nanostructures have attracted considerable interest with respect to potential applications in quantum information processing. In particular, quantum dot molecules have been suggested to provide the building block of a quantum computer: forming quantum gates due to coherent coupling of two dots. The characteristic dependence of the splitting of ‘bonding’ and ‘anti-bonding’ states suggests coherent coupling of two InAs/GaAs quantum dots. Anti-crossings in the fine structure of excitons due to mixing of optically bright and dark states have been observed in Faraday configuration. In Voigt configuration the diamagnetic shift of the quantum dot molecule is enhanced compared to a single quantum dot. These findings altogether demonstrate the coherent coupling of exciton states in quantum dot molecules.     

Experimental demonstration of subcarrier multiplexed quantum key distribution system

We provide, to our knowledge, the first experimental demonstration of the feasibility of sending several parallel keys by exploiting the technique of subcarrier multiplexing (SCM) widely employed in microwave photonics. This approach brings several advantages such as high spectral efficiency compatible with the actual secure key rates, the sharing of the optical fainted pulse by all the quantum multiplexed channels reducing the system complexity, and the possibility of upgrading with wavelength division multiplexing in a two-tier scheme, to increase the number of parallel keys. Two independent quantum SCM channels featuring a sifted key rate of 10 Kb/s/channel over a link with quantum bit error rate <2% is reported.     

Experimental demonstration of passive decoy state quantum key distribution

Passive decoy state quantum key distribution(PDS-QKD) has advantages in high-speed scenarios.We propose a modified model to simulate the PDS-QKD with a weak coherent light source based on Curty’s theory [Opt.Lett.34 3238(2009)].The modified model can provide better performance in a practical PDS-QKD system.Moreover,we report an experimental demonstration of the PDS-QKD of over 22.0-dB channel loss.