Contact: Jonathan Sherwood
jonathan.sherwood@rochester.edu
585-273-4726
University of Rochester

Diagram of Device to Store Image on Photon

Caption: Experimental setup for the delay of transverse images. Light pulses of 2 ns duration are incident on a 50:50 beamsplitter. The transmitted pulses then pass through an amplitude mask and a 4f imaging system. The transmitted and reflected pulses are recombined at another 50:50 beam- splitter. The transmitted part traverses a path approximately five feet shorter than the reflected path, and arrives at the second beamsplitter about five ns sooner than the reflected pulse, preventing interference between the two pulses. The temperature of cesium vapor can then be adjusted to give five ns of delay, resulting in interference. In the low-light-level experiment, the pulses are attenuated such that each pulse contains on average less than one photon and the reflected path is blocked. A scanning optical fiber is used to collect the photons in the image plane and the photon arrival times recorded using a photon counter with time-to-digital converter.

Credit: University of Rochester

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