Optimum pulse shapes for stimulated Raman adiabatic passage

G. S. Vasilev, A. Kuhn, N. V. Vitanov

Published 2009-06-10Version 1

Stimulated Raman adiabatic passage (STIRAP), driven with pulses of optimum shape and delay has the potential of reaching fidelities high enough to make it suitable for fault-tolerant quantum information processing. The optimum pulse shapes are obtained upon reduction of STIRAP to effective two-state systems. We use the Dykhne-Davis-Pechukas (DDP) method to minimize nonadiabatic transitions and to maximize the fidelity of STIRAP. This results in a particular relation between the pulse shapes of the two fields driving the Raman process. The DDP-optimized version of STIRAP maintains its robustness against variations in the pulse intensities and durations, the single-photon detuning and possible losses from the intermediate state.