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Journal of the Korean Physical Society

Time-domain balanced homodyne detection for measuring ultra-weak light

Samyong Bae, Hee-Hyun Mun, Sun-Hyun Youn

Published Feb 1, 2013• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A homodyne detector was constructed for use in the balanced homodyne detection of light. In the frequency domain, the detector had an approximately 95 MHz 3 dB bandwidth and showed a 10 dB difference with regard to the electronic noise level at a local oscillator power of approximately 14 mW. With the detector, mean photon numbers in the signal light were measured in the time domain. The minimum mean photon number was about a few photons during the detector’s integration time of approximately 5.3 ns.

DOI
10.3938/jkps.62.642

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A homodyne detector was constructed for use in the balanced homodyne detection of light. In the frequency domain, the detector had an approximately 95 MHz 3 dB bandwidth and showed a 10 dB difference with regard to the electronic noise level at a local oscillator power of approximately 14 mW. With the detector, mean photon numbers in the signal light were measured in the time domain. The minimum mean photon number was about a few photons during the detector’s integration time of approximately 5.3 ns.
A balanced homodyne detection scheme with nanosecond time resolution and sub-shot-noise sensitivity has been developed and successfully tested yielding an efficient detection scheme for high-speed quantum-optical measurements and communication protocols, for example, quantum cryptography. The parameters of the detector and its precise balancing allow complete characterization of quantum states created by femtosecond light pulses that include the measurement of photon number, optical phase, and statistical properties with a high signal-to-noise ratio for the whole bandwidth from DC to several tens of megahertz. The electronic part of the detector is based on a commercially available amplifier that provides ease of construction and use while yielding good performance.
We present a high-speed time-domain shot-noise-limited balanced homodyne detector that is suitable for the detection of the quantum states of nanosecond pulsed optical fields. The detector can detect the quantum noise of individual nanosecond optical pulses at a repetition rate of 40 MHz and achieve a signal-to-noise ratio of above 14.5 dB at a local oscillator power of 9.9×107 photons per pulse. The stability of the detector is characterized via an Allan variance measurement, and superior stability is observed. The detector is especially applicable in the fields of quantum optics and quantum information, where high-speed time-domain detection of nanosecond pulsed optical field quadratures is required.
A photodetector's electronic bandwidth is the frequency range over which beats between different frequencies in the input can be observed in the output. The output of a balanced homodyne detector, the prototypical device for detecting squeezed light, consists of beats between a signal to be measured and a local oscillator. Beats between the signal and quantum local-oscillator fluctuations lead to noise that degrades the observed squeezing. Through wide-band calculations, we show that this noise contains contributions from the entire signal bandwidth, even when this bandwidth is orders of magnitude larger than the detector's electronic bandwidth. This allows us to place an upper limit on the total power that can enter the detector's signal port (both signal and extraneous light) within the detector's optical bandwidth in order for a given level of squeezing to be observable.
A pulsed, balanced homodyne detector has been developed for precise measurement of the electric field quadratures of pulsed optical quantum states. A high level of common mode suppression (>85 dB) and low electronic noise (730 electrons per pulse) provide a signal-to-noise ratio of 14 dB for measurement of the quantum noise of individual pulses. Measurements at repetition rates as high as 1 MHz are possible. As a test, quantum tomography of the coherent state was performed, and the Wigner function and the density matrix were reconstructed with 99.5% fidelity. The detection system can be used for ultrarsensitive balanced detection in cw mode, e.g., for weak absorption measurements.
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Low-noise, efficient, phase-sensitive time-domain optical detection is essential for foundational tests of quantum physics based on optical quantum states and the realization of numerous applications ranging from quantum key distribution to coherent classical telecommunications. Stability, bandwidth, efficiency, and signal-to-noise ratio are crucial performance parameters for effective detector operation. Here we present a high-bandwidth, low-noise, ultra-stable time-domain coherent measurement scheme based on balanced homodyne detection ideally suited to characterization of quantum and classical light fields in well-defined ultrashort optical pulse modes.