Coherent manipulation of spin-wave vector for polarization of photons in an atomic ensemble.

We experimentally demonstrate the manipulation of two orthogonal components of a spin wave in an atomic ensemble. Based on Raman two-photon transition and Larmor spin precession induced by magnetic field pulses, the coherent rotations between the two components of the spin wave are controllably achieved. Successively, the two manipulated spin-wave components are mapped into two orthogonal polarized optical emissions. By measuring Ramsey fringes of the retrieved optical signals, the π/2-pulse fidelity of ~96% is obtained. The presented manipulation scheme can be used to build an arbitrary rotation for qubit operations in quantum information processing based on atomic ensembles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]