Long-lived quantum memories are essential components of a long-standing goal of remote distribution of entanglement in quantum networks. These can be realized by storing the quantum states of light as single-spin excitations in atomic ensembles. However, spin states are often subjected to different dephasing processes that limit the storage time, which in principle could be overcome using spin-echo techniques. Theoretical studies have suggested this to be challenging due to unavoidable spontaneous emission noise in ensemble-based quantum memories. Here we demonstrate spin-echo manipulation of a mean spin excitation of 1 in a large solid-state ensemble, generated through storage of a weak optical pulse. After a storage time of about 1 ms we optically read out the spin excitation with a high signal-to-noise ratio. Our results pave the way for long-duration optical quantum storage using spin-echo techniques for any ensemble-based memory.
@article{arxiv.1501.03981,
title = {Coherent spin control at the quantum level in an ensemble-based optical memory},
author = {Pierre Jobez and Cyril Laplane and Nuala Timoney and Nicolas Gisin and Alban Ferrier and Philippe Goldner and Mikael Afzelius},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1501.03981},
year = {2015}
}