Quantum memory for images: A quantum hologram

Matter-light quantum interface and quantum memory for light are important ingredients of quantum information protocols, such as quantum networks, distributed quantum computation, etc. [P. Zoller et al., Eur. Phys. J. D 36, 203 (2005)]. In this paper we present a spatially multimode scheme for quantum memory for light, which we call a quantum hologram. Our approach uses a multiatom ensemble which has been shown to be efficient for a single spatial mode quantum memory. Due to the multiatom nature of the ensemble and to the optical parallelism it is capable of storing many spatial modes, a feature critical for the present proposal. A quantum hologram with the fidelity exceeding that of classical hologram will be able to store quantum features of an image, such as multimode superposition and entangled quantum states, something that a standard hologram is unable to achieve.