Researchers realize long-lived storage of multimode quantum statesRecently, a team led by Prof. Guo Guangcan achieved long-lived storage of high-dimensional orbital angular momentum (OAM) quantum states of photons based on cold atomic ensembles, using a guiding magnetic field combined with clock state preparation.After the clock states were employed, the destructive interference between different Zeeman sublevels was eliminated, which consequently extended the lifetime of faithful storage.The team extended the dimension of stored OAM superposition states to three in the experiment, and achieved fidelity that exceeds the quantum-classical criteria after a storage time of 400μs, which is two orders of magnitude longer than previous works.More information: Ying-Hao Ye et al, Long-Lived Memory for Orbital Angular Momentum Quantum States, Physical Review Letters (2022).DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.193601Journal information: Physical Review LettersProvided by University of Science and Technology of China"