Work

Atom-light hybrid interferometer for atomic sensing with quantum memory

Year: 2026

Type: preprint

Abstract: Quantum memories feature a reversible conversion of optical fields into long-lived atomic spin waves, and are therefore ideal for operating as sensitive atomic sensors. However, up to now, atom-light interferometers have lacked an efficient approach to exploit their ultimate atomic sensing performance, since an extra optical delay line is required to compensate for the memory time. Here, we report a new protocol that records the photocurrent via heterodyne mixing with a stable local oscillator. The obtained complex quadrature amplitude that carries information imprinted on its phase by an external magnetic field, is successfully recovered from the interference patterns between the light and the atomic spin wave, without the stringent requirement of having them overlap in time. Our results reveal that the sensitivity scales favorably with the lifetime of the quantum memory. Our work may have important applications in building distributed quantum networks through quantum memory-assisted atom-light interferometers.

Source: arXiv (Cornell University)

DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2601.18373

Authors: Wang, Xingchang, Liang, Xinyun, Yang, Dasen, Dong, Liang, Zuo, Ying, Wang, Jianmin, Chen, Linyu, Siviloglou, Georgios A., Ou, Z. Y., Chen, J. F.

Institutions: Southern University of Science and Technology, City University of Hong Kong

Topic: Quantum optics and atomic interactions

Subfield: Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics

Field: Physics and Astronomy

Domain: Physical Sciences

Open Access status: green

Funders: City University of Hong Kong, National Natural Science Foundation of China, Southern University of Science and Technology, Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation

Awards: G1449133133, Pseudohermitian, topological, and plasmon photonics, G4892305917, G5151632470

OpenAlex ID: W7125786380

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