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IOSR Journal of Applied Physics

A Home-made Balanced Mode Differential Detector

S. Ghezali, Mark A. Kasevich

Published Apr 1, 2016• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A low noise differential detector has been constructed in order to reduce the laser shot noise. A factor of 30dB of the reduction of the rejection noise has been obtained by simulating the amplitude modulation of two laser probes with a home-made electro-optical modulator (EOM). Cold atom devices have a detection zone which may be non-separated from the trapping/cooling zone. The aim of this short letter is to demonstrate the power of a homodyne balanced mode differential detection in a cold atom device experiment and to extrapolate it in a modulation transfer spectroscopy technique. A differential detector has been built with two identical Silicone photodiodes mounted as shown in figure 1 [1]. The photocurrent derived from both photodiodes is controled by the interfet transistor and amplified with a one stage low noise amplifier. Figure1: A balanced mode differential detector We can envisage to work with a home made electro-optical modulator (EOM) constituted by a conductor wire rolled around a cylindrical ceramic which plays the role of a capacitor fixed between two metallic pieces. We choose a resonance frequency (~ MHz) by adjusting the mechanical pressure (for example with many screws) applied on the upper mechanical piece. The microwave energy is introduced inside the box via a SMA connector [2]. See figure 2. Figure 2: A Home Made Electro-Optical Modulator. Otherwise, a very good quality resonant EOM can be available in the market. The wide band EOM are in fact less performant. A Home-made Balanced Mode Differential Detector DOI: 10.9790/4861-0804047779 www.iosrjournals.org 78 | Page Figure 3: Amplitude modulation of two probe lasers. The use of the EOM is simple. It is intended to undergo an amplitude modulation of two probe lasers. A probe laser is modulated in amplitude via the EOM (to few MHz) and is divided into two probes in order to undergo a differential detection. Figure 4: Reduced signal of a factor of 30 dB. A Home-made Balanced Mode Differential Detector DOI: 10.9790/4861-0804047779 www.iosrjournals.org 79 | Page This will reduce the detection noise, essentially the photons' noise taken back to the intrinsic noise of each photodiode [3, 1] (see figure 4). We note that the reduction factor of the photons' noise can be affected by the thermal drift of the modulator. This work has been undergone at the Sloane Physics Laboratory at Yale university in 1999 and has never been published. References [1] P. C. Hobbs, Reaching the shot noise limit, Optics & Photonics News, 17-23, Avril 1991. [2] S. Ghezali, Private communication, 2000. [3] J. M. McGuirk, G. T. Foster, J. B. Fixler and M. A. Kasevich, Opt. Lett., Vol. 26, Issue 6, Mars 2001.

DOI
10.9790/4861-0804047779

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A low noise differential detector has been constructed in order to reduce the laser shot noise. A factor of 30dB of the reduction of the rejection noise has been obtained by simulating the amplitude modulation of two laser probes with a home-made electro-optical modulator (EOM). Cold atom devices have a detection zone which may be non-separated from the trapping/cooling zone. The aim of this short letter is to demonstrate the power of a homodyne balanced mode differential detection in a cold atom device experiment and to extrapolate it in a modulation transfer spectroscopy technique. A differential detector has been built with two identical Silicone photodiodes mounted as shown in figure 1 [1]. The photocurrent derived from both photodiodes is controled by the interfet transistor and amplified with a one stage low noise amplifier. Figure1: A balanced mode differential detector We can envisage to work with a home made electro-optical modulator (EOM) constituted by a conductor wire rolled around a cylindrical ceramic which plays the role of a capacitor fixed between two metallic pieces. We choose a resonance frequency (~ MHz) by adjusting the mechanical pressure (for example with many screws) applied on the upper mechanical piece. The microwave energy is introduced inside the box via a SMA connector [2]. See figure 2. Figure 2: A Home Made Electro-Optical Modulator. Otherwise, a very good quality resonant EOM can be available in the market. The wide band EOM are in fact less performant. A Home-made Balanced Mode Differential Detector DOI: 10.9790/4861-0804047779 www.iosrjournals.org 78 | Page Figure 3: Amplitude modulation of two probe lasers. The use of the EOM is simple. It is intended to undergo an amplitude modulation of two probe lasers. A probe laser is modulated in amplitude via the EOM (to few MHz) and is divided into two probes in order to undergo a differential detection. Figure 4: Reduced signal of a factor of 30 dB. A Home-made Balanced Mode Differential Detector DOI: 10.9790/4861-0804047779 www.iosrjournals.org 79 | Page This will reduce the detection noise, essentially the photons' noise taken back to the intrinsic noise of each photodiode [3, 1] (see figure 4). We note that the reduction factor of the photons' noise can be affected by the thermal drift of the modulator. This work has been undergone at the Sloane Physics Laboratory at Yale university in 1999 and has never been published. References [1] P. C. Hobbs, Reaching the shot noise limit, Optics & Photonics News, 17-23, Avril 1991. [2] S. Ghezali, Private communication, 2000. [3] J. M. McGuirk, G. T. Foster, J. B. Fixler and M. A. Kasevich, Opt. Lett., Vol. 26, Issue 6, Mars 2001.
The research of quantum noise in the interaction of laser and atoms plays a critical role in quantum optical experiments. The measurement of quantum noise is mainly based on the balanced homodyne detection method. Here, we reported a balanced homodyne detector with low noise, high gain, and high common-mode rejection ratio (CMRR) at the wavelength of 795 nm. By optimizing the selection of components and printed circuit board (PCB) layout, a minimum electronic noise of −96.7 dBm is obtained. Over the range of 1 MHz to 5 MHz, we get a flat CMRR above 59 dB and a linear gain regime, which can enable a shot noise measurement with the laser power of100 μw100~\mu \text{w}100 μw. The developed detector can be used in quantum coherent experiments with a weak probe laser of power down to tens of microwatts.
We present a simple design for a single-element balanced detector (BD) that utilizes optical fibers in the sensing and reference channels with path length differences set to detect the differential signal at a desired frequency. With this approach, we easily achieve a common-mode rejection ratio of 65 dB, corresponding to the shot-noise limit of our setup. The CMRR demonstration is made in the MHz frequency range but could be extended to the kHz or GHz range. Using a single detector, the BD achieves stable CMRR over extended periods and does not require careful matching of detectors and amplification electronics. We demonstrate the single-element balanced detector design using the optical Kerr effect induced by a 30 MHz pulsed laser, showing a significant improvement over similar experiments using a commercial balanced detector.
The study, generation, and application of squeezed states of light has been a widely researched area in quantum optics. Vacuum fluctuations or photon shot noise quantified in terms of quadrature operators, impose a quantum limit on the sensitivity of quantum sensing and quantum communication systems. Thus, squeezing the quadratures reduces the quantum uncertainty in a particular quadrature. The amount of squeezing is, however, highly limited by the optics in the experiments and the performance of the balanced homodyne detection (BHD) systems employed for the detection of the squeezed states of light. In this paper, we have analytically studied the steady state, transient and noise responses of the balanced homodyne detection (BHD) circuitry by comparing two configurations i.e., a variable gain circuit with a differential amplifier and a current subtracting circuit with differential fine-tuning circuit (DFTC) and an adjustable bias (ABV). The current subtracting circuit design with DFTC and ABV has been adopted from Xiaoli et al. [1] in order to compensate for any differences in the photodiode performance characteristics in the two arms. A variable gain configuration is used to compensate for the unequal beam splitter ratio and uneven optical powers in the two arms. In order to further improve the noise performance of the system, a differential amplifier is used in the output of the variable gain configuration. A high transimpedance gain (~>70 dB) and a low noise (~<500nV/ √ Hz) performance can be achieved using these circuits as per our analysis.
We report a kind of low-noise,broadband photo-detector that can be applied in the quantum optics experiments.Based on the proper photo-diode,sampling resistor,feedback resistor and capacity were selected,a low-noise,broadband photo-detector was designed and fabricated.The photo-detector can be used to detect the quantum noise with the band-width of 2-50 MHz and the incident power of up to 15 mW.It can also be applied in the quantum optics experiments such as balance detectors,homodyne detectors and so on.A pair of identical photo-detectors with the band-width of 2-31 MHz and Common Mode Rejection Ratio of 30 dB was used as balance detectors to measure the intensity noise of white light,cw single frequency 1064 nm laser and 1550 nm laser.
We present a digital differential detection scheme using a single photodiode to suppress the diode laser frequency noise and improve the short-term stability in atomic clocks based on coherent population trapping (CPT) resonance. One laser light is divided into two beams via modulation of an acousto-optic modulator. One beam induces CPT resonance with circularly polarized light, and the other beam induces only absorption with linearly polarized light. A differential algorithm counteracts common-mode noise from the two beams. A stability of 6.86×10−12 at 100 s and 2.26×10−12 at 1000 s has been demonstrated. The short-term stability is improved by a factor of 2.4 at 100 s. The scheme promises to eliminate laser-related noise and explore potential applications in chip-scale atomic clocks.
A well-balanced detector with high sensitivity and low noise is presented in this paper. The two-stage amplification structure is used to increase electronic gain while keeping an effective bandwidth of about 70 MHz. In order to further reduce electronic noise, a junction field-effect transistor(JFET) is connected between photodiodes and transimpedance amplifier to reduce the impact of amplifier leakage current. Benefit from these designs, the root-mean-square(RMS) of noise voltage is about 6 mV with a gain of 3.2E5 V/W, and it means an ultra-low noise equivalent power density of 2.2E-12 W/rtHz, only half of common low-noise commercial detectors. In addition, two photodiodes in similar frequency response are selected for detector and make the common mode rejection ratio(CMRR) of detector reached 53 dB, about 13 dB higher than commercial detectors. Further tests indicate that 16.8 dB shot-noise to electronic-noise ratio is measured in our detector, which is better than most high speed balanced detectors.