Berlin 2014 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 44: Quantum information: Photons and nonclassical light II

Q 44.4: Talk

Thursday, March 20, 2014, 14:45–15:00, UDL HS3038

Strong interactions in an ultracold Rydberg gas — •Hannes Gorniaczyk, Christoph Tresp, Johannes Schmidt, and Sebastian Hofferberth — Universität Stuttgart, Deutschland

Strong photon-photon coupling can be achieved in highly nonlinear media such as Rydberg atoms under the condition of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). Such a system enables the implementation of fundamental building blocks for photonic information processing in classical and quantum mechanical devices. More fundamentally, interacting Rydberg polaritons form a strongly correlated many-body system with the unique property that the interacting particles can be converted into free photons at any time.

We present our realization of two color Rydberg EIT in a high optical density medium consisting of ultracold Rb87 atoms in an optical trap. The strong optical nonlinearity of this medium enables the realization of an all-optical switch, where the presence of a weak light field has a drastic effect on the transmittance of a second light field through the medium. In our talk, we present our progress towards demonstrating a single photon switch.