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Chinese Physics B

Mach–Zehnder interferometer with squeezed and EPR entangled optical fields

Xudong Yu, Wei Li, Shi-Yao Zhu, Jing Zhang

Published Feb 1, 2016• 5 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study a scheme for Mach–Zehnder (MZ) interferometer as a quantum linear device by injecting two-mode squeezed input states into two ports of interferometer. Two-mode squeezed states can be changed into two types of inputs for MZ interferometer: two squeezed states and Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) entangled states. The interference patterns of the MZ interferometer vary periodically as the relative phase of the two arms of the interferometer is scanned, and are measured by the balanced homodyne detection system. Our experiments show that there are different interference patterns and periodicity of the output quantum states for two cases which depend on the relative phase of input optical fields. Since MZ interferometer can be used to realize some quantum operations, this work will have the important applications in quantum information and metrology.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/25/2/020304

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We study a scheme for Mach–Zehnder (MZ) interferometer as a quantum linear device by injecting two-mode squeezed input states into two ports of interferometer. Two-mode squeezed states can be changed into two types of inputs for MZ interferometer: two squeezed states and Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen (EPR) entangled states. The interference patterns of the MZ interferometer vary periodically as the relative phase of the two arms of the interferometer is scanned, and are measured by the balanced homodyne detection system. Our experiments show that there are different interference patterns and periodicity of the output quantum states for two cases which depend on the relative phase of input optical fields. Since MZ interferometer can be used to realize some quantum operations, this work will have the important applications in quantum information and metrology.
The presence of phase diffusion can lead to the loss of the advantages of quantum measurements. Squeezing is considered to be an effective method to reduce the detrimental effect of phase diffusion on the measurement. The Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer has been exploited as a generic tool for precise phase measurement. Describing the reduction in quantum advantage caused by phase diffusion in an MZ interferometer that can be mitigated by squeezing is not easy to handle analytically, because the input state will change from a pure state to a mixed state after experiencing the diffusion noise in the MZ interferometer. We introduce a truncated MZ interferometer that can achieve the same potential phase sensitivity as the conventional MZ interferometer. This scheme can theoretically explain how phase diffusion reduces phase estimation and why squeezing counteracts in the presence of phase diffusion. Using the Gaussian property of the input state and the characteristic of Gaussian operation in the squeezing, the two orthogonal field quantities of the quantum state are squeezed and anti-squeezed to different degrees, and the analytic results are obtained. The truncated MZ interferometer is simpler to build and operate than the conventional MZ interferometer, and also mitigates the phase diffusion noise by the squeezing operation, thus making it useful for applications in precision metrology.
Photon subtraction (PS) is an important operation for optic quantum information processing. Conventional PS is implemented using a single linear beam splitter (BS) and photon detector. However, in this study, we show that the PS effect can be enhanced using two beam splitters and an optional phase modulator. This can be considered PS with an extended version of the well-known Mach–Zehnder (MZ) interferometer. By tuning the transmittance of the two beam splitters and phase modulator, the probability of success can be considerably improved over that of the original PS scheme with a single BS and photon detector. Moreover, if applied to a single-photon input, our proposed scheme can even implement deterministic PS, which is almost impossible for the original scheme with a single BS and photon detector. Owing to the higher probability of success, applying the PSMZ method to the entanglement enhancement of a very weak two-mode squeezed vacuum state is straightforward. Our result is helpful for improving the yield of output entanglement.
Integrated Mach-Zehnder (MZ) quantum optic circuit is one of most promising approaches for generation and reconfiguration of complex quantum interference. Here, multi photons quantum entanglement is formulated in terms of thermooptic phase change in MZ interferometer having 3 dB two mode interference couplers (MZ-TMI). The manipulation of quantum entanglement is demonstrated theoretically, opening a way to design silicon based quantum optic technology platform for quantum processing applications. Our results also provide multi-photon quantum interference with high fabrication tolerance and fidelity of 0.98 ± 0.01 within smaller dimension than previous implementation of MZ component.
Abstract Choice of the quantum probe state is of key importance to enhance the sensitivity of the Mach–Zehnder (MZ) interferometer beyond the classical one and even approach the quantum Cramér–Rao bound. According to the work of Caves (Caves 1981 Phys. Rev. D 23 1693), the quantum MZ interferometer is a phase-dependent one operating with single-mode squeezed vacuum (SMSV) light coupled with a coherent state. We use the SMSV state with squeezing <10 dB and report a gain in sensitivity of the phase-dependent MZ interferometer of more than 10 dB compared to the original result (Pezze and Smerzi 2008 Phys. Rev. Lett. 100 073601) via photon subtraction. The gain in sensitivity is also observed when measuring the difference in output intensities of the SMSV state with squeezing of < 3 dB from which two, four, and six photons are subtracted and a large coherent state. Overall, subtracting photons from the initially weakly squeezed light can prove to be a more efficient strategy in quantum MZ interferometry compared to highly squeezed SMSV state generation.
A temporal magnon-qubit Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometer is proposed. The interferometer is based on controllable entanglement of a microwave qubit and a magnonic state, achieved by application of a pulsed magnetic field playing the role of a magnon-qubit temporal "beam splitter". Analogous to a typical MZ interferometer, the generated interference pattern of the final qubit population carries information about the magnon dynamics. One important application of the proposed scheme is the study of single magnon decoherence. Interestingly, this scheme allows one to independently determine rates of two possible decoherence channels. This may help enable single magnon state applications and answer fundamental questions of quasi-particle decoherence at single quantum levels.
A two-photon interference experiment is presented in which an entangled pair of photons generated from a parametric down-conversion was incident on two input ports of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The experiment was carried out using two photon coincidence detection with two detectors at the two output ports of the interferometer. The measured coincidence counts exhibit an interference effect with visibility of 0.75 at simultaneous inputs and 0.38 at inputs with different arrival times according to the degree of photon number entanglement.