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arXiv:2412.13744 · Physical Review Research

Accurate and precise optical phase sensor based on a nonlinear quantum Sagnac interferometer

Romain Dalidet, Laurent Labonté, Grégory Sauder, Sébastien Tanzilli, Anthony Martin

Published Jul 14, 2025• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Optical phase measurements play a key role in the detection of macroscopic parameters such as position, velocity, and displacement. They also permit to qualify the microscopic properties of photonic waveguides such as polarization mode dispersion, refractive index difference, and chromatic dispersion. In the quest for ever-better measurement performance and relevance, we report a quantum nonlinear interferometer based on a Sagnac configuration allowing precise, accurate, self-stabilized, and reproductible optical phase measurement. The potential of this system is demonstrated through the measurement of second-order dispersion, namely, chromatic dispersion of a commercial dispersion-shifted fiber at telecommunication wavelength. We demonstrate a precision of 0.007 % , surpassing state-of-the-art measurements by more than one order of magnitude. Additionally, the accuracy of the second-order dispersion value is determined through the measurement of the third-order dispersion, showing a quadratic error as low as 5%. Our system promises the development of photonic-based sensors enabling the measurements of optical-material properties in a user-friendly manner.

DOI
10.1103/y1pg-nx49

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Optical phase measurements play a key role in the detection of macroscopic parameters such as position, velocity, and displacement. They also permit to qualify the microscopic properties of photonic waveguides such as polarization mode dispersion, refractive index difference, and chromatic dispersion. In the quest for ever-better measurement performance and relevance, we report a quantum nonlinear interferometer based on a Sagnac configuration allowing precise, accurate, self-stabilized, and reproductible optical phase measurement. The potential of this system is demonstrated through the measurement of second-order dispersion, namely, chromatic dispersion of a commercial dispersion-shifted fiber at telecommunication wavelength. We demonstrate a precision of 0.007 % , surpassing state-of-the-art measurements by more than one order of magnitude. Additionally, the accuracy of the second-order dispersion value is determined through the measurement of the third-order dispersion, showing a quadratic error as low as 5%. Our system promises the development of photonic-based sensors enabling the measurements of optical-material properties in a user-friendly manner.
Chromatic dispersion critically impacts the performance of numerous applications ranging from telecommunication links to ultrafast optics and nonlinear devices, yet fast and precise measurements are challenging, especially for short length-dispersion products. We present a fully fiber-integrated nonlinear Sagnac interferometer that exploits cascaded second-order processes to generate frequency-anticorrelated idler light and achieve odd-order dispersion cancellation without active stabilization. The measurement is intrinsically self-referenced, as the dispersion-induced phase is extracted from the interference between counter-propagating nonlinear processes within the same Sagnac loop, eliminating the need for an external reference arm or prior calibration. Operating entirely at telecom wavelengths and read out on a standard optical spectrum analyzer, the device produces instantaneous, high-visibility fringes and calibration-free spectra using dual-port normalization. We demonstrate chromatic dispersion measurements on fiber samples ranging from 25 cm to 4 km, spanning short fiber segments to long-haul links. This architecture combines self-stability, broadband compatibility, and rapid acquisition, offering a practical metrology tool for both research and industry.
Fiber laser sources from visible to near-infrared wavelengths have driven innovative developments, impacting various domains such as telecommunications, biology, and medicine. The development of such fiber laser relies on the accurate knowledge of both optical properties as chromatic dispersion and material properties. On the other hand, quantum metrology is one of the promising field enabled by quantum technologies. It allows to get precise results compare to classical methods when measuring physical properties. A very common approach is to inject non classical states of light in interferometers to increase accuracy as well as sensitivity. Recently, this scheme has been used for detecting gravitational waves for example [1]. During the conference, we show how we take advantage of these capabilities to gather optical fiber photonic engineering with quantum optics. More specifically, we aim at presenting two quantum-based method for (i) high-accuracy (10-5) and dispersion-free measurement of refractive index difference and (ii) chromatic dispersion measurement based on the concept of quantum white-light interferometry that allows absolute measurement of chromatic dispersion with ~2.5 times improved accuracies compared to state-of-the-art realizations at telecom wavelengths. [1] B. P. Abbott et. al., ”Observation of Gravitational Waves from a Binary Black Hole Merger”, Phys. Rev. Lett., 116, 061102 (2016)
Measuring the dispersion of photonic devices with small dispersion-length products is challenging due to the phase-sensitive and alignment-intensive nature of conventional methods. In this Letter, we demonstrate a quantum technique to extract the second- and third-order chromatic dispersion of a short single-mode fiber using a fiber-based quantum nonlinear interferometer. The interferometer consists of two cascaded fiber-based biphoton sources, with each source acting as a nonlinear beam splitter. A fiber under test is placed between these two sources and introduces a frequency-dependent phase that is imprinted on the biphoton spectrum (interferogram) at the output of the interferometer. This interferogram contains the dispersion properties of the test fiber. Our technique has three novel features: (1) the broadband nature of the biphoton sources used in our setup allows accurate dispersion measurements on test devices with small dispersion-length products; (2) our all-fiber common-path interferometer requires no beam alignment or phase stabilization; and (3) multiple phase-matching processes supported in our biphoton sources enable dispersion measurements at different wavelengths, which yields the third-order dispersion achieved for the first time, to the best of our knowledge, using a quantum optical technique.
We show several quantum-sensing experimental realizations dedicated to the qualification of optical-material key-properties, such as chromatic dispersion and refractive index variations. More specifically, the material under test (typically, an optical fibre or a nonlinear crystal) is introduced in one of the two arms or in the loop of interferometric devices, mainly in Mach-Zehnder and Sagnac configurations. Probing such devices using peculiar quantum, or quantum-mimicking, photonic states creates material-under-test-dependent relative-phase differences that are imprinted on the established coherent superposition. Here, the employed photonic states exhibit specific modal structures, in the frequency and/or spatial domains, that exploit or mimic quantum entanglement, providing access to the relative phases and to the optical properties under investigation. Associated measurement results show unprecedented precision and/or accuracy, reduced overhead, and otherwise unreachable stability and repeatability. Such quantum interferometric methods pave the way to redefining the very way optical materials are characterized, finding repercussion in various fields ranging from fundamental optics to industry-grade developments.
In order to improve the phase sensitivity of nonlinear Sagnac interferometer, a nonlinear Sagnac fiber optic interferometer based on feedback control is designed to improve the phase sensitivity by introducing a feedback control loop into the nonlinear Sagnac interferometer. This design adopts the composite feedback control structure of Nonlinear Beam Splitter (NBS) and Linear Beam Splitter (BS). By adjusting the reflectivity of the Linear Beam Splitter, the intensity of the feedback signal can be effectively changed to regulate the phase sensitivity of the interferometer. The feedback amplified signal light passes through the Sagnac fiber optic ring before being processed by a second NBS for quantum enhancement to further improve the phase sensitivity of the interferometer. The simulation results show that the phase sensitivity of the interferometer with certain feedback strength is better than that without feedback. Especially when the phase difference is π, the phase sensitivity of the interferometer with low and medium feedback strengths is improved by 33.3% and 28.9% respectively; In addition, the gain coefficient of the NBS is a key parameter affecting the performance of the interferometer, and a suitable gain coefficient can further optimize the phase sensitivity of the interferometer.