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arXiv:1407.5207 · Review of Scientific Instruments

Highly stable polarization independent Mach-Zehnder interferometer

Michal Mičuda, Ester Doláková, Ivo Straka, Martina Miková, Miloslav Dušek, Jaromı́r Fiurášek, Miroslav Ježek

Published Aug 1, 2014• 27 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

We experimentally demonstrate optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer utilizing displaced Sagnac configuration to enhance its phase stability. The interferometer with footprint of 27×40 cm offers individually accessible paths and shows phase deviation less than 0.4° during a 250 s long measurement. The phase drift, evaluated by means of Allan deviation, stays below 3° or 7 nm for 1.5 h without any active stabilization. The polarization insensitive design is verified by measuring interference visibility as a function of input polarization. For both interferometer's output ports and all tested polarization states the visibility stays above 93%. The discrepancy in visibility for horizontal and vertical polarization about 3.5% is caused mainly by undesired polarization dependence of splitting ratio of the beam splitter used. The presented interferometer device is suitable for quantum-information and other sensitive applications where active stabilization is complicated and common-mode interferometer is not an option as both the interferometer arms have to be accessible individually.

DOI
10.1063/1.4891702

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•Jan 1, 2020•0 citations
We experimentally demonstrate optical Mach-Zehnder interferometer utilizing displaced Sagnac configuration to enhance its phase stability. The interferometer with footprint of 27×40 cm offers individually accessible paths and shows phase deviation less than 0.4° during a 250 s long measurement. The phase drift, evaluated by means of Allan deviation, stays below 3° or 7 nm for 1.5 h without any active stabilization. The polarization insensitive design is verified by measuring interference visibility as a function of input polarization. For both interferometer's output ports and all tested polarization states the visibility stays above 93%. The discrepancy in visibility for horizontal and vertical polarization about 3.5% is caused mainly by undesired polarization dependence of splitting ratio of the beam splitter used. The presented interferometer device is suitable for quantum-information and other sensitive applications where active stabilization is complicated and common-mode interferometer is not an option as both the interferometer arms have to be accessible individually.
Abstract We designed and implemented a novel combination of a Sagnac-interferometer with a Mach–Zehnder interferometer for a source of polarization-entangled photons. The new versatile configuration does not require multi-wavelength polarization optics, yet it performs with a good polarization quality and phase-stability over a wide wavelength range. We demonstrate the interferometer using only standard commercial optics to experimentally realize the pulsed generation of polarization-entangled photon-pairs at wavelengths of 764 nm and 1221 nm via type-I spontaneous four-wave mixing in a polarization-maintaining fiber. Polarization entanglement was verified by a polarization-correlation measurement with a visibility of 95.5% from raw coincidence counts and the violation of the Clauser–Horne–Shimony–Holt (CHSH) inequality with S = 2.70 ± 0.04. The long-term phase-stability was characterized by an Allan deviation of 8° over an integration time of about 1 h with no active phase-stabilization.
We present designs for variably polarizing beam splitters. These are beam splitters allowing the complete and independent control of the horizontal and vertical polarization splitting ratios. They have quantum optics and quantum information applications, such as quantum logic gates for quantum computing and non-local measurements for quantum state estimation. At the heart of each design is an interferometer. We experimentally demonstrate one particular implementation, a displaced Sagnac interferometer configuration, that provides an inherent instability to air currents and vibrations. Furthermore, this design does not require any custom-made optics but only common components which can be easily found in an optics laboratory.
Sagnac 형태로 변형된 Mach-Zehnder 간섭계(SMZI)는 모든 광경로가 동일한 광부품을 서로 공유하기 때문에 위상 흔들림을 최소화할 수 있는 안정된 간섭계이다. 본 연구에서는 단일광자 수준까지 감쇄시킨 레이저 광과 제 2형의 매개하향변환에서 발생한 편광 상관관계가 있는 광자로부터 준비된 단일광자를 이용한 간섭실험에서 매우 안정된 간섭무늬를 관측하였다. SMZI의 위상은 약 ±0.18{\pm}0.18±0.18 rad으로 안정적인 반면에 보통의 MZI는 ±1.02{\pm}1.02±1.02 rad의 위상 요동을 나타내었다. A Sagnac-type Mach-Zehnder interferometer(SMZI) is a very stable instrument with respect to phase drift because all optical paths can share common optical components. We have observed very stable interference fringes in single photon interference experiments with an extremely attenuated laser beam, and with heralded single photons prepared from polarization correlated photon pairs in type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion. The phase stability is measured to be about ±0.18{\pm}0.18±0.18 rad for the SMZI, in contrast, conventional MZI showed the phase fluctuation of around ±1.02{\pm}1.02±1.02 rad.
We experimentally demonstrate stable and user-adjustable single-photon interference in a 1 km long fiber-optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer, using an active phase control system with the feedback provided by a classical laser. We are able to continuously tune the single-photon phase difference between the interferometer arms using a phase modulator, which is synchronized with the gate window of the single-photon detectors. The phase control system employs a piezoelectric fiber stretcher to stabilize the phase drift in the interferometer. A single-photon net visibility of 0.97 is obtained, yielding future possibilities for experimental realizations of quantum repeaters in optical fibers and violation of Bell's inequalities using genuine energy-time entanglement.
We realized a polarization-independent split-ratio-tunable optical beam splitter supporting two input and output ports through a stable interferometer. By adjusting the angle of a half-wave plate in the interferometer, we can tune the beam splitter reflectivities for both input ports from 0 to 1, regardless of the input light polarization. High-fidelity polarization-preserving transmission from input to output ports was verified by complete quantum process tomography. Nearly optimal interference effects at the beam splitter with various split ratios were observed by two-photon Hong-Ou-Mandel interference for different input polarization states. Such a beam splitter could find a variety of applications in classical and quantum optical technologies.
This thesis investigates the phenomena of phase stability in a fiber-optical MZI (Mach-Zehnder Interferometer). The MZI is a key building block of optical systems for use in experiments with both continuous-wave light and with single photons. By splitting incoming light into two beams and allowing it to interfere with itself, an interference pattern is visible at the output, and this phenomena can be used to code information. This is the operating principle in, for example, QKD (Quantum Key Distribution) experiments. This interference requires coherence that is higher than the length difference between the beams that the incoming light is split into. Particularly the phase of the beams must be equal to achieve constructive interference. If one beam is phase-shifted (with respect to the other) due to the light having traversed a longer path, only partially constructive interference is achieved. If the phase shift also varies with time this leads to a system where experiments can no longer reliably be performed. Sources of these fluctuations are thermal, acoustic or mechanical. Fiber-optical interferometers are particularly sensitive to path length fluctuations of the waveguides as the fiber-optic medium contracts and elongates with temperature, and also has a larger surface area for circulating air to mechanically disturb the waveguides than bulk optics interferometers. In this thesis, a solution to environment-induced phase drift is presented by evaluating implementations of feedback algorithms for automatic control. The algorithms PID (Proportional-, Integral-, Derivative controller) and an ICA (IncrementalControl Algorithm) have been investigated and the performance of these controllers has been compared when used with, and without, optical enclosures. The algorithms are implemented in an FPGA (Field-Programmable Gate Array) and the controller actuates an electro-optical phase modulator that can add a phase shift to one of the light beams in the MZI. This thesis shows that significant improvement in the optical stability can be achieved with active control compared to an interferometer without active phase control.