Chinese Journal of Quantum Electronics ›› 2025, Vol. 42 ›› Issue (2): 246-259.doi: 10.3969/j.issn.1007-5461.2025.02.010

• Quantum Optics • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Long⁃term optical memory based on crystal waveguide

ZHENG Liang 1 , LIU Chao 1 , ZHOU Zongquan 1,2*, LI Chuanfeng 1,2*   

  1. 1 CAS Key Laboratory of Quantum Information, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei 230026, China; 2 Hefei National Laboratory, Hefei 230088, China
  • Received:2023-12-06 Revised:2024-02-27 Published:2025-03-28 Online:2025-03-28

Abstract: An integrated optical memory with a long storage lifetime based on a waveguide fabricated in a rare-earth-ion-doped crystal is developed in this work by utilizing femtosecond-laser-micromachining. This optical memory features a cross-section with 20 μm diameter and an insertion loss of 5 dB. A demonstration of long-life optical storage in the memory shows that the storage efficiency decay of the memory exhibits a multi-exponential pattern, with characteristic time constants of 4.9 ± 0.1 h and 14.2 ± 0.8 h. This optical memory has a storage efficiency of 8.1% at a storage time of 1.4 s, and a storage efficiency of 0.6% is achieved at maximum storage time of 24 hours. Such long-lived crystal waveguide based memory is potential to be extended to a 2-dimensional integration array, and is expected to be applied in integrated optical information processing.

Key words: quantum optics, optical memory, integrated optics, optical waveguide

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