您选择的条件: Sheng Zhang
  • Spatially homogeneous few-cycle compression of Yb lasers via all-solid-state free-space soliton management

    分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-23

    摘要: The high power and variable repetition rate of Yb femtosecond lasers make them very attractive for ultrafast science. However, for capturing sub-200 fs dynamics, efficient, high-fidelity, and high-stability pulse compression techniques are essential. Spectral broadening using an all-solid-state free-space geometry is particularly attractive, as it is simple, robust, and low-cost. However, spatial and temporal losses caused by spatio-spectral inhomogeneities have been a major challenge to date, due to coupled space-time dynamics associated with unguided nonlinear propagation. In this work, we use all-solid-state free-space compressors to demonstrate compression of 170 fs pulses at a wavelength of 1030nm from a Yb:KGW laser to ~9.2 fs, with a highly spatially homogeneous mode. This is achieved by ensuring that the nonlinear beam propagation in periodic layered Kerr media occurs in soliton modes and confining the nonlinear phase through each material layer to less than 1.0 rad. A remarkable spatio-spectral homogeneity of ~0.87 can be realized, which yields a high efficiency of >50% for few-cycle compression. The universality of the method is demonstrated by implementing high-quality pulse compression under a wide range of laser conditions. The high spatiotemporal quality and the exceptional stability of the compressed pulses are further verified by high-harmonic generation. This work represents the highest efficiency and the best spatio-spectral quality ever achieved by an all-solid-state free-space pulse compressor for few-cycle-pulse generation.

  • Active spintronic-metasurface terahertz emitters with tunable chirality

    分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The ability to manipulate the electric-field vector of broadband terahertz waves is essential for applications of terahertz technologies in many areas, and can open up new possibilities for nonlinear terahertz spectroscopy and coherent control. Here, we propose a novel laser-driven terahertz emitter, consisting of metasurface-patterned magnetic multilayer heterostructures. Such hybrid terahertz emitters can combine the advantages of spintronic emitters for being ultrabroadband, efficient and flexible, as well as those of metasurfaces for the unique capability to manipulate terahertz waves with high precision and degree of freedom. Taking a stripe-patterned metasurface as an example, we demonstrate the generation of broadband terahertz waves with tunable chirality. Based on experimental and theoretical studies, the interplay between the laser-induced spintronic-origin currents and the metasurface-induced transient charges/currents are investigated, revealing the strong influence on the device functionality originated from both the light-matter interactions in individual metasurface units and the dynamic coupling between them. Our work not only offers a flexible, reliable and cost-effective solution for chiral terahertz wave generation and manipulation, but also opens a new pathway to metasurface-tailored spintronic devices for efficient vector-control of electromagnetic waves in the terahertz regime.

  • Multicell Atomic Quantum Memory as a Hardware-Efficient Quantum Repeater Node

    分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: For scalable quantum communication and networks, a key step is to realize a quantum repeater node that can efficiently connect different segments of atom-photon entanglement using quantum memories. We report a compact and hardware-efficient realization of a quantum repeater node using a single atomic ensemble for multicell quantum memories. Millisecond lifetime is achieved for individual memory cells after suppressing the magnetic-field-induced inhomogeneous broadening and the atomic-motion-induced spin-wave dephasing. Based on these long-lived multicell memory cells, we achieve heralded asynchronous entanglement generation in two quantum repeater segments one after another and then an on-demand entanglement connection of these two repeater segments. As another application of the multicell atomic quantum memory, we further demonstrate storage and on-demand retrieval of heralded atomic spin-wave qubits by implementing a random access quantum memory with individual addressing capacity. This work provides a promising constituent for efficient realization of quantum repeaters for large-scale quantum networks.

  • Quantum-Memory-Enhanced Preparation of Nonlocal Graph States

    分类: 光学 >> 量子光学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Graph states are an important class of multipartite entangled states. Previous experimental generation of graph states and in particular the Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger (GHZ) states in linear optics quantum information schemes is subjected to an exponential decay in efficiency versus the system size, which limits its large-scale applications in quantum networks. Here we demonstrate an efficient scheme to prepare graph states with only a polynomial overhead using long-lived atomic quantum memories. We generate atom-photon entangled states in two atomic ensembles asynchronously, retrieve the stored atomic excitations only when both sides succeed, and further project them into a four-photon GHZ state. We measure the fidelity of this GHZ state and further demonstrate its applications in the violation of Bell-type inequalities and in quantum cryptography. Our work demonstrates the prospect of efficient generation of multipartite entangled states in large-scale distributed systems with applications in quantum information processing and metrology.