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Physical review. D. Particles, fields, gravitation, and cosmology/Physical review. D. Particles and fields

Squeezed states in phase-sensing interferometers

Roy S. Bondurant, Jeffrey H. Shapiro

Published Dec 15, 1984• 299 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The performance of phase-sensing interferometers employing squeezed states and homodyne detection is analyzed and compared to the performance of systems employing direct detection. Standard differenced direct-detection Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometers are shown to be suboptimal in the sense that an observation/measurement-noise coupling occurs, which can degrade performance. Homodyne-detection interferometers in which the phase shift in one arm is the conjugate of that in the other arm do not suffer from the preceding drawback. Overall, however, the performance of differenced direct-detection and homodyne-detection interferometers is similar in single-frequency operation. In particular, both detection schemes reach the standard quantum limit on position-measurement sensitivity in single-frequency interferometric gravity-wave detectors at roughly the same average photon number. This limit arises from back action in the form of radiation pressure fluctuations entering through the energy-phase uncertainty principle. Multifrequency devices can circumvent this uncertainty principle, as illustrated by the conceptual design given for a two-frequency interferometer which can greatly surpass the standard quantum limit on position sensing. This configuration assumes that ideal photodetectors respond to photon flux rather than energy flux.

DOI
10.1103/physrevd.30.2548

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The performance of phase-sensing interferometers employing squeezed states and homodyne detection is analyzed and compared to the performance of systems employing direct detection. Standard differenced direct-detection Michelson and Mach-Zehnder interferometers are shown to be suboptimal in the sense that an observation/measurement-noise coupling occurs, which can degrade performance. Homodyne-detection interferometers in which the phase shift in one arm is the conjugate of that in the other arm do not suffer from the preceding drawback. Overall, however, the performance of differenced direct-detection and homodyne-detection interferometers is similar in single-frequency operation. In particular, both detection schemes reach the standard quantum limit on position-measurement sensitivity in single-frequency interferometric gravity-wave detectors at roughly the same average photon number. This limit arises from back action in the form of radiation pressure fluctuations entering through the energy-phase uncertainty principle. Multifrequency devices can circumvent this uncertainty principle, as illustrated by the conceptual design given for a two-frequency interferometer which can greatly surpass the standard quantum limit on position sensing. This configuration assumes that ideal photodetectors respond to photon flux rather than energy flux.
Based on the conventional Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we propose a metrological scheme to improve phase sensitivity. In this scheme, we use a coherent state and a squeezed vacuum state as input states, employ multi-photon-subtraction operations and make intensity-detection or homodyne-detection. We study phase sensitivity, quantum Fisher information and quantum Cramér-Rao bound under both ideal and lossy conditions. The results indicate that choosing an appropriate detection method and photon subtraction scheme can significantly enhance the phase sensitivity and robustness against photon losses. Even under lossy conditions, the multi-photon subtraction schemes can surpass the standard quantum limit. Notably, the homodyne detection method can even break through the Heisenberg limit. Moreover, increasing the number of photon-subtracted can enhance both phase sensitivity and quantum Fisher information. This research highlights the significant value of this scheme in quantum precision measurement.
We have studied the sensitivity of four different phase shift measurement schemes with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The input light is considered to be in a coherent state and the detectors are assumed to be ideal with the quantum efficiency of unity. It is shown by direct calculation of the operators corresponding to the measurement schemes that the uncertainty of the phase-shift measurement is limited to the classical one 1m\frac{1}{\sqrt{m}}m​1​ (m is the average number of the photons in the input state) regardless of the phase-shift measurement schemes.
The canonical Mach-Zehnder interferometer fed with a coherent state and a squeezed-vacuum state of equal intensities is theoretically predicted to achieve Heisenberg scaling in phase sensitivity. However, this ultimate performance is unattainable using direct photon-number-difference detection due to a divergence arising precisely at the optimal equal-intensity regime. In this work, we introduce a dual-squeezing approach that overcomes this fundamental limitation. Our scheme employs an additional single-mode squeezer before detection, forming a paired configuration with the input squeezer used to generate the squeezed-vacuum state. We analytically demonstrate that the resulting dual-squeezing Mach-Zehnder interferometer enables Heisenberg-limited phase sensitivity with di rect photon-number-difference detection, while remaining robust against detection noise. Our work provides a feasible and robust route toward quantum-limited interferometric phase measurements
An important part of optical sensing is interferometry, where direct or homodyne detection at the output of an interferometer yields information about small phase shifts. Classical interferometry operates at the shot-noise limit (SNL), caused by the photon structure of light and reached when an interferometer is fed with coherent light. The use of nonclassical light at the input of an interferometer enables overcoming the SNL. In particular, squeezed light is known to be less noisy than coherent light. An interferometer fed with strongly squeezed light can, in principle, provide the phase sensitivity at the Heisenberg limit, the ultimate limit allowed by the laws of physics. However, this supersensitive operation is strongly degraded by loss – both inside the interferometer and outside it, at the stage of detection. While the former (internal loss) seems to be inevitable, the latter (detection loss) can be overcome, and we demonstrate it in our recent experiment. The clue is to amplify light at the interferometer output using a phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier. This device does not introduce additional noise, but it amplifies the fragile quantum signal and thus makes it tolerant to loss at the detection stage. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we build a polarization Mach-Zehnder interferometer and feed it with coherent light in one port and a squeezed vacuum in another port. At one output port, we amplify light with an optical parametric amplifier and measure a phase sensitivity of 13 mrad for 1500 photons in the interferometer. This result, achieved with 50% detection efficiency, overcomes the SNL by 3 dB. Moreover, by using stronger amplification, we can overcome the SNL under detection efficiency as low as 13%. Our results outline a way to use squeezed light for real-life sensing, where the detection efficiency cannot be very high, especially in spectral ranges like middle-infrared or terahertz.
The double-homodyne and the heterodyne detection schemes for phase shifts between two synchronous modes of the electromagnetic field are analyzed in the framework of quantum estimation theory. The probability operator-valued measures (POM's) of the detectors are evaluated and compared with the ideal one in the limit of strong local reference oscillator. The present operational approach leads to a reasonable definition of phase measurement, whose sensitivity is actually related to the output r.m.s. noise of the photodetector. We emphasize that the simple-homodyne scheme does not correspond to a proper phase-shift measurements as it is just a zero-point detector. The sensitivity of all detection schemes are optimized at fixed energy with respect to the input state of radiation. It is shown that the optimal sensitivity can be actually achieved using suited squeezed states.
Compared to classical state inputs, using quantum states in interferometers, especially squeezed states, can greatly improve the accuracy of the phase estimation. Here, we propose a scheme based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with a displaced two-mode squeezed coherent state input. The scheme employs both intensity difference detection and balanced homodyne detection to achieve high phase sensitivity. The displaced squeezed state exhibits higher accuracy and better robustness by theoretical calculations. For the state, the phase sensitivity of the quantum Cramér-Rao bound and intensity difference detection both exceed the shot noise limit. Additionally, we demonstrate that the proposed state is superior to the two-mode squeezed coherent state by analyzing different displacement operations. Under the presence of both the interferometric transmission loss and the detection loss, higher displacement strength yields higher robustness. To the best of our knowledge, our work provides new ideas for the field of precision measurement.