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Journal of the Physical Society of Japan

Real-Time Phase Difference Control of Optical Beams Using a Mach–Zehnder Interferometer

Bor-Wen Shiau, Tzu-Ping Ku, Dian-Jiun Han

Published Mar 10, 2010• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present an experimental scheme for fast phase difference control of optical beams based on a simple, however robust setup of Mach–Zehnder interferometer. We demonstrate to smoothly tune the relative phase by 140° in 275 ms, with an average peak-to-peak phase difference jitter less than 0.9°. The overall achievable tuning range, both for continuous and stepwise scans, can be more than 320°. This scheme is totally immune to intensity fluctuation and allows to engage the conventional phase-shifting imaging. It is especially suitable for real-time configuration control of 2D and 3D optical lattice potentials to study the tunneling and transport effects on cold atomic samples.

DOI
10.1143/jpsj.79.034302

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We present an experimental scheme for fast phase difference control of optical beams based on a simple, however robust setup of Mach–Zehnder interferometer. We demonstrate to smoothly tune the relative phase by 140° in 275 ms, with an average peak-to-peak phase difference jitter less than 0.9°. The overall achievable tuning range, both for continuous and stepwise scans, can be more than 320°. This scheme is totally immune to intensity fluctuation and allows to engage the conventional phase-shifting imaging. It is especially suitable for real-time configuration control of 2D and 3D optical lattice potentials to study the tunneling and transport effects on cold atomic samples.
A Michelson-type interferometer is built to dynamically lock the optical phase difference between the two-arm laser beams. The phase difference is tunable and allowed for continuous adjustments nearly by 160°. Under the best locking condition, a relative phase stability better than 0.1° is achieved starting from the original phase jitter of 10 to 15°. The interferometer is made by simply adding a pair of Brewster windows in one arm of the conventional setup, yet it provides much robust phase locking. It is readily applicable for optical lattice construction and nondestructive phase contrast imaging of ultracold atoms.
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.
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.
The performance of atom interferometers is commonly limited by the finite spectral acceptance of atomic beam splitters and mirrors, which restricts efficient coupling to atoms with large Doppler shifts and reduces the usable atomic flux. Here, we demonstrate spectral-domain coherent control of Raman coupling by engineering its effective two-photon spectrum. By synthesizing multiple frequency components, the Raman interaction simultaneously addresses a broad range of atomic velocities, effectively overcoming the conventional transit-time-limited linewidth. Implemented in a continuous atomic-beam Mach-Zehnder interferometer, where the transverse Doppler broadening is 17 times larger than the intrinsic Raman linewidth, this approach enhances the fringe contrast from 5.9(2)% to 15.1(2)%, indicating a substantial increase in effective atomic participation. Our results establish spectral-domain coherent control as a general strategy for achieving spectrally robust atom interferometry and open new opportunities for quantum sensing in systems with strong inhomogeneous broadening.
Abstract We report on a novel phase-locking technique for fiber-based Mach–Zehnder interferometers based on discrete single-photon detections, and demonstrate this in a setup. Our interferometer decodes relative-phase-encoded optical pulse pairs for quantum key distribution applications and requires no locking laser in addition to the weak received signal. Our new simple locking scheme is shown to produce an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck dynamic and achieve optimal phase noise for a given count rate. In case of wavelength drifts that arise during the reception of Doppler-shifted satellite signals, the arm-length difference gets continuously readjusted to keep the interferometer phase stable.