A broadband DLCZ quantum memory in room-temperature atoms

Abstract Quantum memory capable of stopping flying photons and storing their quantum coherence is essential for scalable quantum technologies. A room-temperature broadband quantum memory will enable the implementation of large-scale quantum systems for real-life applications. Due to either intrinsic high noises or short lifetime, it is still challenging to find a room-temperature broadband quantum memory beyond conceptual demonstration. Here, we present a far off-resonance Duan–Lukin–Cirac–Zoller (FORD) protocol and demonstrate the broadband quantum memory in room-temperature atoms. We observe a low unconditional noise level of 10−4 and a cross-correlation up to 28. A strong violation of Cauchy–Schwarz inequality indicates high-fidelity generation and preservation of non-classical correlation. Furthermore, the achieved cross-correlation in room-temperature atoms exceeds the key boundary of 6, above which quantum correlation is able to violate Bell’s inequality. Our results open up the door to an entirely new realm of memory-enabled quantum applications at ambient conditions.