In this thesis I present the investigations of matter-light entanglement in cold atomic samples. Particularly, entanglement of mixed species ensembles and bichromatic light fields is proposed and demonstrated experimentally. This approach avoids the use of two interferometrically separate paths for qubits entanglement distribution. I also present the first implementation of multiplexed quantum memory, and experimentally demonstrate entanglement involving arbitrary pairs of elements within this memory array. Finally, quantum interference of electromagnetic fields emitted by remote quantum memory elements separated by 5.5 m is realized.

In this thesis, we investigate the quantum mechanical interaction of light with matter in the form of a gas of ultracold atoms: the atomic ensemble. We present a theoretical analysis of two problems, which involve the interaction of quantized electromagnetic fields (called signal and idler) with the atomic ensemble (i) cascade two-photon emission in an atomic ladder configuration, and (ii) photon frequency conversion in an atomic diamond configuration. The motivation of these studies comes from potential applications in long-distance quantum communication where it is desirable to generate quantum correlations between telecommunication wavelength light fields and ground level atomic coherences. In the two systems of interest, the light field produced in the upper arm of an atomic Rb level scheme is chosen to lie in the telecom window. The other field, resonant on a ground level transition, is in the near-infrared region of the spectrum. Telecom light is useful as it minimizes losses in the optical fiber transmission links of any two long-distance quantum communication device. We develop a theory of correlated signal-idler pair correlation. The analysis is complicated by the possible generation of multiple excitations in the atomic ensemble. An analytical treatment is given in the limit of a single excitation assuming adiabatic laser excitations. The analysis predicts superradiant timescales in the idler emission in agreement with experimental observation. To relax the restriction of a single excitation, we develop a different theory of cascade emission, which is solved by numerical simulation of classical stochastic differential equation using the theory of open quantum systems. The simulations are in good qualitative agreement with the analytical theory of superradiant timescales. We further analyze the feasibility of this two-photn source to realize the DLCZ protocol of the quantum repeater communication system. We provide a quantum theory of near-infrared to telecom wavelength conversion in the diamond configuration. The system provides a crucial part of a quantum-repeater memory element, which enables a "stored" near-infrared photon to be converted to a telecom wavelength for transmission without the destruction of light-atom quantum correlation. We calculate the theoretical conversion efficiency, analyzing the role of optical depth of the ensemble, pulse length, and quantum fluctuations on the process.

Produire et faire interagir entre eux des photons optiques de façon contrôlée sont deux conditions nécessaires au développement de communications quantiques à longue distance, et plus généralement au traitement quantique d’information codée sur des photons. Cette thèse présente une étude expérimentale de solutions possibles a ces deux problèmes, en utilisant la conversion des photons en excitations collectives (polaritons) dans un nuage d’atomes froids, placé dans le mode d’une cavité optique de faible finesse (~100). Dans un premier temps, des polaritons entre états atomiques fondamentaux sont utilisés pour « mettre en mémoire » une excitation unique dans le nuage. Celle-ci est ensuite convertie efficacement en un photon unique, dont le champ est analysé par tomographie homodyne. La fonction de Wigner de l’état à un photon est reconstruite a partir des données expérimentales, et présente des valeurs négatives, démontrant que les degrés de liberté de ce photon (mode spatio-temporel et état quantique) sont complètement contrôlés. Dans un second temps, les photons sont couplés à des polaritons impliquant des états de Rydberg. Les fortes interactions dipolaires entre ces derniers se traduisent par des non-linéarités optiques dispersives très importantes, qui sont caractérisées dans un régime d’excitation classique. Ces non-linéarités peuvent être amplifiées jusqu’à ce qu’un seul photon suffise à modifier totalement la réponse du système, permettant en principe de générer des interactions effectives entre photons. / Controllably producing optical photons and making them interact are two key requirements for the development of long-distance quantum communications, and more generally for photonic quantum information processing. This thesis presents experimental studies on possible solutions to these two problems, using the conversion of the photons into collective excitations (polaritons) in a cold atomic cloud, inside the mode of a low-finesse optical cavity (~100). Firstly, ground-state polaritons are used to store a single excitation in the cloud memory. This polariton is then efficiently converted into a single photon, whose field is characterized via homodyne tomography. The single photon state’s Wigner function is reconstructed from the experimental data and exhibits negative values, demonstrating that the photon’s degrees of freedom (spatio-temporal mode and quantum state) are well controlled. Secondly, photons can be coupled to polaritons involving Rydberg states. The strong dipolar interactions between these give rise to very strong optical dispersive nonlinearities, that are characterized in a classical excitation regime. These nonlinearities can be amplified until a single photon is enough to modify the entire system’s response, allowing in principle for the generation of effective photon-photon interactions.