Room-temperature ladder-type optical memory compatible with single photons from semiconductor quantum dots

Robust interfaces between single-photon sources and quantum memories are pivotal for tomorrow's quantum network architectures. The authors present a room-temperature ladder-type atomic memory for single photons at 895 nm. Comprehensive performance characterization reveals the capabilities of the memory for high bandwidth and low noise, and benchmarking shows its compatibility with state-of-the-art quantum dot single-photon sources. This work paves the way toward a heterogeneous on-demand interface between a single-photon source and an optical memory for buffering and synchronization in quantum network nodes.