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Optics Letters

Local-oscillator excess-noise suppression for homodyne and heterodyne detection

Gregory L. Abbas, Vincent W. S. Chan, Ting K. Yee

Published Aug 1, 1983• 179 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Semiclassical calculations of the signal-to-noise density ratio for a homodyne/heterodyne receiver utilizing two detectors are made. These calculations show that excess intensity noise in the local oscillator can be canceled and need not degrade the performance of the receiver. An experimental demonstration of excess-noise cancellation is reported.

DOI
10.1364/ol.8.000419

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Semiclassical calculations of the signal-to-noise density ratio for a homodyne/heterodyne receiver utilizing two detectors are made. These calculations show that excess intensity noise in the local oscillator can be canceled and need not degrade the performance of the receiver. An experimental demonstration of excess-noise cancellation is reported.
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Quantum-mechanical calculations of the mean-square fluctuation spectra in optical homodyning and heterodyning are made for arbitrary input and local-oscillator quantum states. In addition to the unavoidable quantum fluctuations, it is shown that excess noise from the local oscillator always affects homodyning and, when it is broadband, also heterodyning. Both the quantum and the excess noise of the local oscillator can be eliminated by coherent subtraction of the two outputs of a 50-50 beam splitter. This result also demonstrates the fact that the basic quantum noise in homodyning and heterodyning is signal quantum fluctuation, not local-oscillator shot noise.
A parallel development of the semiclassical and quantum statistics of multi-spatiotemporal mode direct, homodyne, and heterodyne detection using an ideal (except for its sub-unity quantum efficiency) photon detector is presented. Particular emphasis is placed on the latter two coherent detection configurations. The primary intent is to delineate the semiclassical theory's regime of validity and to show, within this regime of validity, how the quantum theory's signal quantum noise, local oscillator quantum noise, the quantum noise incurred because of sub-unity detector quantum efficiency, plus (for heterodyning only) image band quantum noise produce the quantitative equivalent of the semiclassical theory's local oscillator shot noise. The effects of classical fluctuations on the local oscillator, and the recently suggested dual- detector arrangement for suppressing these fluctuations, are treated. It is shown that previous studies of this arrangement have neglected a potentially significant noise contribution.
Quantum noise in optical heterodyning and homodyning, usually analyzed under the assumption that the photodetector output is conditionally Poisson,1,2 is frequently supposed to arise from local oscillator (LO) shot noise. However, a fully quantum mechanical analysis from Yuen and Shapiro3 has shown that it actually arises from the signal quantum fluctuation; in particular homodyning and heterodyning are realizations of abstract quantum measurements of the field quadratures. We analyze the effect of LO noise, both quantum and excess noise, on homodyne and heterodyne detection. For conventional input light, i.e., fields in coherent states or their random superpositions, we demonstrate how a conditionally Poisson calculation would yield the correct answer but incorrect interpretation for the detection quantum noise.
The quantum-limited operation of balanced mixer optical homodyne and heterodyne receiver using a 50-50 percent beam splitter and two identical photodetectors is experimentally confirmed. The absolute quantum noise levels are calibrated with an incoherent GaAs light-emitting diode output. The photoelectron statistics, obtained through the analog photon counting experiment, are reduced to the quantum limit. The photocurrent fluctuation spectral density measured with a spectrum analyzer also agrees with the quantum noise spectral density. Furthermore, the deviations from the absolute quantum noise level are within ±0.02 dB. Finally, complete suppression of local oscillator excess noise is demonstrated in the 0-1.5 GHz frequency region.