and the spin of an electron or hole confined in the QD.'
author:
- 'Matthew T. Rakher'
- 'Richard J. Warburton'
- Philipp Treutlein
title: 'Prospects for Storage and Retrieval of a Quantum Dot Single Photon in an Ultracold $^{87}$Rb Ensemble'
---

Introduction {#sec:intro}
============

Quantum communication and computation offer technological advances by performing information processing with quantum mechanics [@ref:NielsenChuang; @ref:Ladd_Nat10]. In order to perform these tasks over large distances, photons are the obvious choice to carry quantum information. However, transmission over large distances is dramatically hampered by attenuation in optical fibers. Unlike classical fiber optic communication, amplifiers placed periodically along the transmission channel cannot be used to overcome this loss owing to the “no-cloning" theorem [@ref:Wootters_Nat_82]. Fortunately, quantum repeaters have been proposed to resolve this issue by using entanglement shared between adjacent nodes and joint measurements to create entanglement between the start node and the terminal node [@ref:Briegel_PRL_98; @ref:Kimble_Nat08; @ref:Sangouard_RMP_2011]. A crucial element in this scheme is the ability to efficiently store and retrieve single photons using a quantum memory [@ref:Duan_Lukin_Cirac_Zoller; @ref:Lvovsky_Nphot_2009]. To date, the essential ingredients of a photonic quantum memory have been demonstrated using ensembles of ultracold alkali atoms [@ref:Chaneliere_Kuzmich; @ref:Choi_Nat_2008; @ref:ZhaoPan_NPhys_08; @ref:ZhaoKuz_NPhys_09], ensembles of ultracold atoms 