High-performance Raman quantum memory with optimal control in room temperature atoms

Quantum memories are essential for quantum information processing. Techniques have been developed for quantum memory based on atomic ensembles. The atomic memories through optical resonance usually suffer from the narrow-band limitation. The far off-resonant Raman process is a promising candidate for atomic memories due to broad bandwidths and high speeds. However, to date, the low memory efficiency remains an unsolved bottleneck. Here, we demonstrate a high-performance atomic Raman memory in (87)Rb vapour with the development of an optimal control technique. A memory efficiency of above 82.0% for 6 ns~20 ns optical pulses is achieved. In particular, an unconditional fidelity of up to 98.0%, significantly exceeding the no-cloning limit, is obtained with the tomography reconstruction for a single-photon level coherent input. Our work marks an important advance of atomic memory towards practical applications in quantum information processing.