There and back again: Extending optical storage lifetime by retrieving photon echoes from semiconductor spin excitations
(Phys.org) —For all of their differences, classical and quantum communication have at least one thing in common: the importance of being able to store optical information. That being said, optical storage is a complex process that depends largely on the material being used to convert, store and retrieve this information in a controllable, consistent manner – a process especially prone to short optimal memory times when implemented in certain semiconductor quantum structures. Recently, however, scientists at Technische Universität Dortmund, Germany in collaboration with Saint Petersburg State University, Russia and Institute of Physics in Warsaw, Poland demonstrated magnetic-field-induced long-lived stimulated photon echoes1 – coherent optical phenomena in which resonant excitation of a medium by short optical pulses results in a delayed coherent optical flash response – in the electron–trion system, allowed the bidirectional coherent transfer of quantum information in a semiconductor between optical and spin excitations. (Trions are excitations comprising three...