Preservation of spatial coherence of an optical pulse in atomic vapor quantum memory

Abstract

We report on the preservation of transverse spatial coherence of an optical pulse stored in atomic vapor quantum memory. The high visibility Young-type spatial fringes formed by interference between the retrieved and the delayed optical pulses clearly demonstrate that the atomic vapor quantum memory based on electromagnetically induced transparency preserves transverse spatial coherence. This demonstration has important implications in quantum imaging and multimode quantum information processing.