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Journal of Applied Optics

High precision positioning based on chirped-pulse interferometry

Li Min

Published Jan 1, 2012• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

A new scheme is presented for high precision positioning based on chirped-pulse interferometry(CPI).In this scheme,a pair of oppositely chirped optical pulses with strong classical frequency correlations are combined at a beamsplitter.The output beams with two different paths are recombined and focused onto a nonlinear crystal.High precision positioning with magnitude of micron is obtained theoretically by detecting sum frequency interference signal as a function of relative delay between two different paths.The impact of difference between chirp and anti-chirp pulse on positioning is studied.It is shown that positioning has a high tolerance of difference between chirp and anti-chirp parameter.Our scheme exhibits all the advantages of quantum spatial positioning based on the Hong-Ou-Mandel(HOM) quantum interference,but with more simple experimental setup,robustness against loss and greater signals,which provide more improvements in practical maneuverability.

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A new scheme is presented for high precision positioning based on chirped-pulse interferometry(CPI).In this scheme,a pair of oppositely chirped optical pulses with strong classical frequency correlations are combined at a beamsplitter.The output beams with two different paths are recombined and focused onto a nonlinear crystal.High precision positioning with magnitude of micron is obtained theoretically by detecting sum frequency interference signal as a function of relative delay between two different paths.The impact of difference between chirp and anti-chirp pulse on positioning is studied.It is shown that positioning has a high tolerance of difference between chirp and anti-chirp parameter.Our scheme exhibits all the advantages of quantum spatial positioning based on the Hong-Ou-Mandel(HOM) quantum interference,but with more simple experimental setup,robustness against loss and greater signals,which provide more improvements in practical maneuverability.
Interference has long been used for precision measurement of path-length changes. Since the advent of the laser, interference has become one of the most versatile tools in metrology. Specifically, ultra-short laser pulses allow unprecedented resolution in absolute length measurements. While ultra-short laser pulses lead to high resolution, for example in white-light interferometry, they are very susceptible to dispersion. \n \nQuantum resources have been proposed to overcome some of the problems related to distortions in the interferometric signal. For example, the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometer relies on frequency-entangled photon pairs and features automatic even-order dispersion cancellation and high interference visibility resilient to unbalanced loss. Quantum-OCT is a technique based on HOM interferometry, that promises to overcome Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) a classical imaging technique based on low coherence light. Furthermore, straightforward modifications of the HOM interferometer can display several different interferometric signals, including the HOM peak, quantum beating, and phase super-resolution. However, the quantum resources required are hard to produce and dim, leading to long integration times and single-photon counting. \n \nIn this thesis, we introduce the theory behind Chirped-Pulse Interferometry (CPI), a new technique that combines all the advantages of Q-OCT, including even-order dispersion cancellation, but without the need for any quantum resources. We then experimentally implement CPI and demonstrate all the important characteristics shared by the HOM interferometer, but at dramatically larger signal levels. We show how CPI can be used to measure dispersion cancelled axial profiles of an optical sample and show the improvement in resolution over white-light interferometry. Finally, we show that by modifying CPI in analogous ways to HOM, CPI can also be made to produce interferometric signal identical to the HOM peak, quantum beating, and phase super-resolution.
Chirped-pulse interferometry is a new interferometric technique encapsulating the advantages of the quantum Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer without the drawbacks of using entangled photons. Both interferometers can exhibit even-order dispersion cancellation which allows high resolution optical delay measurements even in thick optical samples. In the present work, we show that finite frequency correlations in chirped-pulse interferometry and Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometry limit the degree of dispersion cancellation. Our results are important considerations in designing practical devices based on these technologies.
Chirped-pulse interferometry (CPI) captures the metrological advantages of quantum Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometry in a completely classical system. Modified HOM interferometers are the basis for a number of seminal quantum-interference effects. Here, the corresponding modifications to CPI allow for the first observation of classical analogues to the HOM peak and quantum beating. They also allow a new classical technique for generating phase super-resolution exhibiting a coherence length dramatically longer than that of the laser light, analogous to increased two-photon coherence lengths in entangled states.
Quantum interference forces two indistinguishable input photons to depart a beamsplitter in the same (of two possible) spatial output modes; this is known as the Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) effect. It provides a quantitative way of measuring the distinguishability between two photons and also has been utilised to determine their relative temporal delays [1, 2]. HOM interferometry offers numerous advantages over its classical counterpart, most importantly it lacks any dependence on the phase of the photons and therefore can potentially provide reliable measurements in environments where the phase is unstable. To date there have been very few investigations on the precision that is achievable with HOM interferometry. Experiments with collinear geometries have yielded sensitivities as low as 0.1fs however these approaches are limited to measurements of birefringence and other polarisation dependent effects [3, 4], as the precision derives from the inherently stable shared path of the photon pairs. Typical non-shared path HOM interferometers exhibit resolution of roughly 1–3 fs (0.3–1 μm).
We propose a stable and high-precision three-dimensional (3D) quantum positioning scheme based on Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interference. While previous studies have explored HOM interference in quantum metrology, they were mostly limited to one-dimensional scenarios, whereas real-world applications require full 3D spatial resolution. Our approach not only generalizes HOM positioning to 3D-achieving ultimate sensitivity as defined by the quantum Cramér-Rao bound under ideal conditions-but also stabilizes estimation accuracy through simple polarization tuning, ensuring that the Fisher information remains independent of the estimated parameters. Theoretical analysis and simulations demonstrate that our method achieves ultraprecise and reliable 3D positioning, even with a limited number of detected photons.
Ultra-broadband frequency entangled biphotons have exceptionally short temporal duration and can achieve narrow Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interference patterns, making them vital for quantum metrology applications. However, the bandwidth of previously demonstrated biphotons used for HOM interference has been limited to less than 400 nm, which is not wide enough to achieve ultra-high precision in quantum metrology. In order to push the precision to its limit, we have theoretically designed a 20-mm-long chirped periodically poled lithium niobate (CPPLN) crystal with type-II phase matching. Pumped by a 405 nm laser, the down-converted signal and idler photons can cover the wavelength range from 420 to 5200 nm, approaching the transparent upper bound of the LN crystal. In the simulated Hong–Ou–Mandel (HOM) interference, the full-width at half-maximum of the interference pattern is 965 attoseconds, with a visibility of 99.44%. Following a similar approach, we also designed a type-0 CPPLN crystal to achieve higher brightness. These ultra-broadband biphoton sources can generate ultra-narrow quantum interference patterns, which have the potential for attosecond-level high-precision quantum metrology.