arXiv subjects

Ying-Cheng Chen

Publications and source records attributed to Ying-Cheng Chen.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Strain effects on the binding and diffusion energies of Au adatoms and CeO2 admolcules on Au, CeO2, MgO and SrTiO3 surfaces

First-principles density functional theory (DFT) calculations were used to study the effects of elastic strains on the binding and diffusion activation energies of Au adatom and CeO2 admolecule on Au (001), Ce-terminated CeO2 (001), MgO (001), SrO- and TiO2-terminationed SrTiO3 (001) surfaces. In preparation for computing these energies, normal and shear strains within the range 0.15% were applied in the plane of the surface of the supercell prior to placing the adsorbed species on the surface. Our study shows that the dependence of binding energies and diffusion barriers of adatoms and molecules on the strain varies significantly among surfaces. The strain was found to alter the symmetry of surface diffusion pathways causing anisotropy of the diffusion barriers. This strain-induced anisotropy depends on the orientation of the applied strains relative to the in-plane crystallographic directions of the free surface. The binding and diffusion activation energies were fit linearly in terms of strain components in the range 0.15% and the extrapolated values compared favorably to DFT computed values up to 0.5%. The scheme presented here for the computation and fitting of the binding and diffusion energies in terms of strain can be used to inform models of surface diffusion, clustering and growth of multi-component and multi-phase thin films and investigate the effect of strain on the self-organization in such systems.

cond-mat.mtrl-sci↗

arXiv2025

Adaptable Route to Fast Coherent State Transport via Bang-Bang-Bang Protocols

Fast coherent state transport is essential to quantum computation and quantum information processing. While an adiabatic transport of atomic qubits guarantees a high fidelity of the state preparation, it requires a long timescale that defies efficient quantum operations. Here, we propose an adaptable and fast bang-bang-bang (BBB) protocol, utilizing a combination of forwardand backward-moving trap potentials, to expedite the coherent state transport. This protocol approaches the quantum speed limit under a harmonic trap potential, surpassing the performance by the forward-moving-only potential protocols. We further showcase the advantage of applying squeezed coherent state evolution under a deeper potential followed by a weaker one, where a design of symmetric squeezing potential transports promotes an even shorter timescale for genuine state preparation. Our protocols outperform conventional forward-moving-only methods, providing new insights and opportunities for rapid state transport and preparation, ultimately advancing the capabilities of quantum control and quantum operations.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Satellites promise global-scale quantum networks

Academia, governments, and industry around the world are on a quest to build long-distance quantum communication networks for a future quantum internet. Using air and fiber channels, quantum communication quickly faced the daunting challenge of exponential photon loss with distance. Quantum repeaters were invented to solve the loss problem by probabilistically establishing entanglement over short distances and using quantum memories to synchronize the teleportation of such entanglement to long distances. However, due to imperfections and complexities of quantum memories, ground-based proof-of-concept repeater demonstrations have been restricted to metropolitan-scale distances. In contrast, direct photon transmission from satellites through empty space faces almost no exponential absorption loss and only quadratic beam divergence loss. A single satellite successfully distributed entanglement over more than 1,200 km. It is becoming increasingly clear that quantum communication over large intercontinental distances (e.g. 4,000-20,000 km) will likely employ a satellite-based architecture. This could involve quantum memories and repeater protocols in satellites, or memory-less satellite-chains through which photons are simply reflected, or some combination thereof. Rapid advancements in the space launch and classical satellite communications industry provide a strong tailwind for satellite quantum communication, promising economical and easier deployment of quantum communication satellites.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2025

Efficient and high-fidelity entanglement in cavity QED without high cooperativity

The so-called state-carving protocol generates high-fidelity entangled states at an atom-cavity interface without requiring high cavity cooperativity. However, this protocol is limited to 50\% efficiency, which restricts its applicability. We propose a simple modification to the state-carving protocol to achieve efficient entanglement generation, with unit probability in principle. Unlike previous two-photon schemes, ours employs only one photon which interacts with the atoms twice - avoiding separate photon detections which causes irrecoverable probability loss. We present a detailed description and performance evaluation of our protocol under non-ideal conditions. High fidelity of 0.999 can be achieved with cavity cooperativity of only 34. Efficient state-carving paves the way for large-scale entanglement generation at cavity-interfaces for modular quantum computing, quantum repeaters and creating arbitrary shaped atomic graph states, essential for one-way quantum computing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

NOVA: A visual interface for assessing polarizing media coverage

Within the United States, the majority of the populace receives their news online. U.S mainstream media outlets both generate and influence the news consumed by U.S citizens. Many of these citizens have their personal beliefs about these outlets and question the fairness of their reporting. We offer an interactive visualization system for the public to assess their perception of the mainstream media's coverage of a topic against the data. Our system combines belief elicitation techniques and narrative structure designs, emphasizing transparency and user-friendliness to facilitate users' self-assessment on personal beliefs. We gathered $\sim${25k} articles from the span of 2020-2022 from six mainstream media outlets as a testbed. To evaluate our system, we present usage scenarios alongside a user study with a qualitative analysis of user exploration strategies for personal belief assessment. We report our observations from this study and discuss future work and challenges of developing tools for the public to assess media outlet coverage and belief updating on provocative topics.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Observation of Highly Correlated Ultrabright Biphotons Through Increased Atomic Ensemble Density in Spontaneous Four-Wave Mixing

The pairing ratio, a crucial metric assessing a biphoton source's ability to generate correlated photon pairs, remains underexplored despite theoretical predictions. This study presents experimental findings on the pairing ratio, utilizing a double-$Λ$ spontaneous four-wave mixing biphoton source in cold atoms. At an optical depth (OD) of 20, we achieved an ultrahigh biphoton generation rate of up to $1.3\times10^7$ per second, with a successful pairing ratio of $61\%$. Increasing the OD to 120 significantly improved the pairing ratio to $89\%$, while maintaining a consistent biphoton generation rate. This achievement, marked by high generation rates and robust biphoton pairing, holds great promise for advancing efficiency in quantum communication and information processing. Additionally, in a scenario with a lower biphoton generation rate of $5.0 \times 10^4$ per second, we attained an impressive signal-to-background ratio of 241 for the biphoton wavepacket, surpassing the Cauchy-Schwarz criterion by approximately $1.5\times10^4$ times.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2024

Atomic excitation trapping in dissimilar chirally-coupled atomic arrays

Atomic array coupled to a one-dimensional nanophotonic waveguide allows photon-mediated dipole-dipole interactions and nonreciprocal decay channels, which hosts many intriguing quantum phenomena owing to its distinctive and emergent quantum correlations. In this atom-waveguide quantum system, we theoretically investigate the atomic excitation dynamics and its transport property, specifically at an interface of dissimilar atomic arrays with different interparticle distances. We find that the atomic excitation dynamics hugely depends on the interparticle distances of dissimilar arrays and the directionality of nonreciprocal couplings. By tuning these parameters, a dominant excitation reflection can be achieved at the interface of the arrays in the single excitation case. We further study two effects on the transport property-of external drive and of single excitation delocalization over multiple atoms, where we manifest a rich interplay between multi-site excitation and the relative phase in determining the transport properties. Finally, we present an intriguing trapping effect of atomic excitation by designing multiple zones of dissimilar arrays. Similar to the single excitations, multiple excitations are reflected from the array interfaces and trapped as well, although complete trapping of many excitations together is relatively challenging at long time due to a faster combined decay rate. Our results can provide insights to nonequilibrium quantum dynamics in dissimilar arrays and shed light on confining and controlling quantum registers useful for quantum information processing.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2023

Fisher information analysis on quantum-enhanced parameter estimation in electromagnetically-induced-transparency spectrum with single photons

Electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) spectroscopy has been used as a sensitive sensor in quantum metrology applications. The sensitivity of a sensor strongly depends on the measurement precision of EIT spectrum. In this work, we present a theoretical study of the spectral lineshape measurement on a three-level $Λ$-type EIT media based on Fisher information (FI) analysis. Using two kinds of probing source: the single-photon Fock state and the coherent state, we calculate the FI in an EIT medium and quantify the quantum advantage and limitations of the single-photon probe. The analysis of FI structure also provides a clear picture to classify the spectral lineshape into two different regimes, the EIT and Aulter-Townes splitting (ATS). This work provides a systematic analysis of the single-photon EIT spectrum, which provides essential knowledge of quantum sensing based on EIT and deepens our understanding of spectral characteristics of $Λ$-type media.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Temporally-ultralong biphotons with a linewidth of 50 kHz

We report the generation of biphotons, with a temporal full width at the half maximum (FWHM) of 13.4$\pm$0.3 $μ$s and a spectral FWHM of 50$\pm$1 kHz, via the process of spontaneous four-wave mixing. The temporal width is the longest, and the spectral linewidth is the narrowest up to date. This is also the first biphoton result that obtains a linewidth below 100 kHz, reaching a new milestone. The very long biphoton wave packet has a signal-to-background ratio of 3.4, which violates the Cauchy-Schwarz inequality for classical light by 4.8 folds. Furthermore, we demonstrated a highly-tunable-linewidth biphoton source and showed that while the biphoton source's temporal and spectral width were controllably varied by about 24 folds, its generation rate only changed by less than 15\%. A spectral brightness or generation rate per pump power per linewidth of 1.2$\times$10$^6$ pairs/(s$\cdot$mW$\cdot$MHz) was achieved at the temporal width of 13.4 $μ$s. The above results were made possible by the low decoherence rate and high optical depth of the experimental system, as well as the nearly phase-mismatch-free scheme employed in the experiment. This work has demonstrated a high-efficiency ultranarrow-linewidth biphoton source, and has made a substantial advancement in the quantum technology utilizing heralded single photons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2022

Room-temperature biphoton source with a spectral brightness near the ultimate limit

The biphotons, generated from a hot atomic vapor via the process of spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM), have the following merits: stable and tunable frequencies as well as linewidth. Such merits are very useful in the applications of long-distance quantum communication. However, the hot-atom SFWM biphoton sources previously had far lower values of generation rate per linewidth, i.e., spectral brightness, as compared with the sources of biphotons generated by the spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) process. Here, we report a hot-atom SFWM source of biphotons with a linewidth of 960 kHz and a generation rate of 3.7$\times$ $10^5$ pairs/s. The high generation rate, together with the narrow linewidth, results in a spectral brightness of 3.8$\times$ $10^5$ pairs/s/MHz, which is 17 times of the previous best result with atomic vapors and also better than all known results with all kinds of media. The all-copropagating scheme together with a large optical depth (OD) of the atomic vapor is the key improvement, enabling the achieved spectral brightness to be about one quarter of the ultimate limit. Furthermore, this biphoton source had a signal-to-background ratio (SBR) of 2.7, which violated the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality for classical light by about 3.6 folds. Although an increasing spectral brightness usually leads to a decreasing SBR, our systematic study indicates that both of the present spectral brightness and SBR can be enhanced by further increasing the OD. This work demonstrates a significant advancement and provides useful knowledge in the quantum technology using photons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2021

A Weakly-Interacting Many-Body System of Rydberg Polaritons Based on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

We proposed utilizing a medium with a high optical depth (OD) and a Rydberg state of low principal quantum number, $n$, to create a weakly-interacting many-body system of Rydberg polaritons, based on the effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT). We experimentally verified the mean field approach to weakly-interacting Rydberg polaritons, and observed the phase shift and attenuation induced by the dipole-dipole interaction (DDI). The DDI-induced phase shift or attenuation can be viewed as a consequence of the elastic or inelastic collisions among the Rydberg polaritons. Using a weakly-interacting system, we further observed that a larger DDI strength caused a width of the momentum distribution of Rydberg polaritons at the exit of the system to become notably smaller as compared with that at the entrance. In this study, we took $n =32$ and the atomic (or polariton) density of 5$\times10^{10}$ (or 2$\times10^{9}$) cm$^{-3}$. The observations demonstrate that the elastic collisions are sufficient to drive the thermalization process in this weakly-interacting many-body system. The combination of the $μ$s-long interaction time due to the high-OD EIT medium and the $μ$m$^2$-size collision cross section due to the DDI suggests a new and feasible platform for the Bose-Einstein condensation of the Rydberg polaritons.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2021

Generation of sub-MHz and spectrally-bright biphotons from hot atomic vapors with a phase mismatch-free scheme

We utilized the all-copropagating scheme, which maintains the phase-match condition, in the spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) process to generate biphotons from a hot atomic vapor. The scheme enables our biphotons not only to surpass those in the previous works of hot-atom SFWM, but also to compete with the biphotons that are generated by either the cold-atom SFWM or the cavity-assisted spontaneous parametric down conversion. The biphoton linewidth in this work is tunable for an order of magnitude. As we tuned the linewidth to 610 kHz, the maximum two-photon correlation function, $g_{s,as}^{(2)}$, of the biphotons is 42. This $g_{s,as}^{(2)}$ violates the Cauchy-Schwartz inequality for classical light by 440 folds, and demonstrates that the biphotons have a high purity. The generation rate per linewidth of the 610-kHz biphoton source is 1,500 pairs/(s$\cdot$MHz), which is the best result of all the sub-MHz biphoton sources in the literature. By increasing the pump power by 16 folds, we further enhanced the generation rate per linewidth to 2.3$\times$10$^4$ pairs/(s$\cdot$MHz), while the maximum $g_{s,as}^{(2)}$ became 6.7. In addition, we are able to tune the linewidth down to 290$\pm$20 kHz. This is the narrowest linewidth to date, among all the various kinds of single-mode biphotons.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Efficient frequency conversion based on resonant four-wave mixing

Efficient frequency conversion of photons has important applications in optical quantum technology because the frequency range suitable for photon manipulation and communication usually varies widely. Recently, an efficient frequency conversion system using a double-$Λ$ four-wave mixing (FWM) process based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) has attracted considerable attention because of its potential to achieve a nearly 100% conversion efficiency (CE). To obtain such a high CE, the spontaneous emission loss in this resonant-type FWM system must be suppressed considerably. A simple solution is to arrange the applied laser fields in a backward configuration. However, the phase mismatch due to this configuration can cause a significant decrease in CE. Here, we demonstrate that the phase mismatch can be effectively compensated by introducing the phase shift obtained by two-photon detuning. Under optimal conditions, we observe a wavelength conversion from 780 to 795 nm with a maximum CE of 91.2(6)% by using this backward FWM system at an optical depth of 130 in cold rubidium atoms. The current work represents an important step toward achieving low-loss, high-fidelity EIT-based quantum frequency conversion.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2020

Efficient quantum memory for heralded single photons generated by cavity-enhanced spontaneous parametric downconversion

We interface a spontaneous parametric down conversion (SPDC) crystal and a cold atomic ensemble and demonstrate a highly efficient quantum memory through polarization-encoded single-photon qubits. Specifically, narrowband heralded single photons from a cavity-enhanced SPDC source is stored using cold atomic ensemble, with ~70% storage-and-retrieval efficiency and ~10$μ$s storage time at 50% efficiency. To prevent the degradation after storage, we also manipulate the single-photon wave profile so that the retrieved non-classical nature of single photon is preserved. On the other hand, the dual-rail storage is used for storing polarization-encoded qubits, and the corrected fidelity of flying qubits after storage reaches ~97%. The results pave the way toward large-scale quantum network.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2020

Broadband coherent optical memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency

Quantum memories, devices that can store and retrieve photonic quantum states on demand, are essential components for scalable quantum technologies. It is desirable to push the memory towards the broadband regime in order to increase the data rate. Here, we present a theoretical and experimental study on the broadband optical memory based on electromagnetically-induced-transparency (EIT) protocol. We first provide a theoretical analysis on the issues and requirements to achieve a broadband EIT memory. We then present our experimental efforts on EIT memory in cold atoms towards the broadband or short-pulse regime. A storage efficiency of ~ 80 % with a pulse duration of 30 ns (corresponding to a bandwidth of 14.7 MHz) is realized. Limited by the available intensity of the control beam, we could not conduct an optimal storage for the even shorter pulses but still obtain an efficiency of larger than 50 % with a pulse duration of 14 ns (31.4 MHz). The achieved time-bandwidth-product at the efficiency of 50 % is 1267.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2020

Memory-based optical polarization conversion in a double-Λ atomic system with degenerate Zeeman states

Optical memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a double-Λatomic system provides a convenient way to convert the frequency, bandwidth or polarization of optical pulses by storing in oneΛchannel and retrieving in another.This memory-based optical converter can be used to bridge quantum nodes of different physical properties in a quantum network. However, in real atoms, each energy level usually contains degenerate Zeeman states and this may lead to additional energy loss, as have been discussed in our recent theoretical paper (Phys. Rev. A 100, 063843). Here, we present an experimental study on the efficiency variation in the EIT-memory-based optical polarization conversion in cold cesium atomsunder the Zeeman-state optical pumping. The experimental results support the theoretical predictions. Our works provide quantitative knowledge and physical insight useful to the practical implementation of EIT-memory-based optical converter.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Theoretical study on memory-based optical converter with degenerate Zeeman states

We present a theoretical study on the efficiency variation of coherent light conversion based on optical memories using the electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) protocol in an atomic system with degenerate Zeeman states. Based on the Maxwell-Bloch equation, we obtain an approximate analytic solution for the converted light pulses which clarifies that two major factors affecting the efficiency of the converted pulses. The first one is the finite bandwidth effect of the pulses and the difference in the delay-bandwidth product of the writing and reading channel due to the difference in the transition dipole moment. The second one is the mismatch between the stored ground-state coherence and the ratio of the Clebsch-Gordan coefficient for the probe and control transition in the reading channel which results in a non-adiabatic energy loss. To correspond to real experimental conditions, we also perform a numerical calculation of the variation in conversion efficiency versus the Zeeman population distribution under the Zeeman-state optical pumping in storing a $σ^{+}$-polarized pulse and retrieving with $σ^{-}$ polarization in cesium atoms. Our work provides essential physical insights and quantitative knowledge for the development of a coherent optical converter based on EIT-memory.

quant-ph↗

arXiv2019

Low-Loss High-Fidelity Frequency-Mode Hadamard Gates Based on Electromagnetically Induced Transparency

A frequency beam splitter (FBS) with the split ratio of 0.5 or 1 can be used as the frequency-mode Hadamard gate (FHG) for frequency-encoded photonic qubits or as the quantum frequency converter (QFC) for frequency up or down conversion of photons. Previous works revealed that all kinds of the FHG or QFC operating at the single-photon level had overall efficiency or output-to-input ratio around 50% or less. In this work, our FHG and QFC are made with the four-wave mixing process based on the dual-$Λ$ electromagnetically induced transparency scheme. We achieved an overall efficiency of 90$\pm$4% in the FGH and that of 84% in the QFC using coherent-state single photons, both of which are the best up-to-date records. To test the fidelity of the FBS, we propose a novel scheme of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference (HOMI) for quantum process tomography. The fidelity indicated by the HOMI's $g^{(2)}$ measurement of the FHG is 0.99$\pm$0.01. Such low-loss high-fidelity FHG and QFC or FBS with the tunable split ratio can lead to useful operations or devices in long-distance quantum communication.

quant-ph↗