Dipole Blockade and Quantum Information Processing in Mesoscopic Atomic Ensembles

M. D. Lukin; M. Fleischhauer; R. Cote; L. M. Duan; D. Jaksch; J. I. Cirac; P. Zoller

doi:10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.037901

Dipole Blockade and Quantum Information Processing in Mesoscopic Atomic Ensembles

M. D. Lukin, M. Fleischhauer, R. Cote, L. M. Duan, D. Jaksch, J. I. Cirac, and P. Zoller

Phys. Rev. Lett. 87, 037901 – Published 26 June 2001

Abstract

We describe a technique for manipulating quantum information stored in collective states of mesoscopic ensembles. Quantum processing is accomplished by optical excitation into states with strong dipole-dipole interactions. The resulting “dipole blockade” can be used to inhibit transitions into all but singly excited collective states. This can be employed for a controlled generation of collective atomic spin states as well as nonclassical photonic states and for scalable quantum logic gates. An example involving a cold Rydberg gas is analyzed.

Received 7 November 2000

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.87.037901

Authors & Affiliations

M. D. Lukin¹, M. Fleischhauer^1,2, and R. Cote³

¹ITAMP, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
²Fachbereich Physik, Universität Kaiserslautern, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany
³Physics Department, University of Connecticut, Storrs, Connecticut 06269

L. M. Duan, D. Jaksch, J. I. Cirac, and P. Zoller