Czech-Polish-Slovak Optical Conference on Wave and Quantum Aspects of Contemporary Optics
Optical amplification for quantum sources of ultra-stable optical frequency
Radek Velc, Jan Kundrát, Rudolf Vohnout, Pavel Škoda, Michal Altmann, Vladimír Smotlacha, Michal Hažlinský, Ondřej Čı́p, Martin Čížek, Jan Hrabina, Lenka Pravdová, Václav Hucl, Šimon Řeřucha, Josef Vojtěch, Ondřej Havliš, Martin Šlapák, Jan Radil, Petr Münster, Tomáš Horváth, Lada Altmannová
The reach of any all-optical transmission is limited by attenuation of transmission path and other factors as signal to noise ratio, and it can be extended by all-optical amplification. Bidirectional single fibre transmission introduces an issue of bidirectional symmetrical amplifiers in order not to lose advantage of path symmetry. In case of time transfer, quasibidirectional amplification might be acceptable when supported by specific arrangements, e.g. as much as possible equal arrangement for disjoint segments of the path. Time transfer with best available accuracy or optical frequency transfers require single path optical amplifiers that are further considered. In this constitution, unfortunately, reflections together with Rayleigh back-scattering will create feedback. In case feedback is strong enough and discrete amplifier operates in high gain regime (about 20dB), the whole system will start to oscillate. It saturates the gain of amplifiers and also can generate errors, when lasing in a transmission band. In the article, we review possible all optical amplification methods including those allowing to use untraditional transmission bands (outside C band).
The reach of any all-optical transmission is limited by attenuation of transmission path and other factors as signal to noise ratio, and it can be extended by all-optical amplification. Bidirectional single fibre transmission introduces an issue of bidirectional symmetrical amplifiers in order not to lose advantage of path symmetry. In case of time transfer, quasibidirectional amplification might be acceptable when supported by specific arrangements, e.g. as much as possible equal arrangement for disjoint segments of the path. Time transfer with best available accuracy or optical frequency transfers require single path optical amplifiers that are further considered. In this constitution, unfortunately, reflections together with Rayleigh back-scattering will create feedback. In case feedback is strong enough and discrete amplifier operates in high gain regime (about 20dB), the whole system will start to oscillate. It saturates the gain of amplifiers and also can generate errors, when lasing in a transmission band. In the article, we review possible all optical amplification methods including those allowing to use untraditional transmission bands (outside C band).
Introduction Most of the lightwave transmission systems operating today benefit fully from extensive deployment of optical amplifiers (OA). These components perform the amplification of optical intensity directly in the optical domain, without resorting to any electrical-domain regeneration. Optical amplifiers increase the average number of output photons per unit time by several orders of magnitude compared with the incoming signal intensity. However, as with every amplifying process, optical amplification cannot be achieved without paying back for the unavoidable noise power added to the signal intensity. As we will see in detail in Chapter 6, the optical amplification process comes with optical noise generated by spontaneous emission inside the active medium. The intensity of the optical signal is represented by the flux of the signal photon population. Conversely, the photons generated by the spontaneous emission process inside the optical cavity represent the noise photon population. The fundamental phenomenon supporting optical amplification is stimulated emission. The basic property of stimulated emission, making the great difference from spontaneous emission and enabling optical amplification, is the coherent nature of the photon generation process. Accordingly, both signal and noise photons go through the same multiplication process by means of stimulated emission. Unless the optical cavity where the stimulated emission takes place (the active cavity) presents selective features for enhancing the signal photon population relative to the spontaneous one, there is no way to avoid noise photons going through stimulated emission, filling most of the cavity population. As a consequence, both photon populations increase, leading respectively to amplified signal intensity and to amplified spontaneous emission intensity. It should be apparent that every noise photon can create a new identical noise photon as a result of stimulated emission, effectively increasing the noise intensity in the active optical cavity. This is the well-known mechanism of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise in optical amplification. Any improvement in the optical amplifier structure devoted to increasing stimulated over spontaneous emission will probably increase the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) at the cavity output. The spectrum of gain characteristic of the optical active medium is usually wide enough to support an efficient amplification of the broadband spontaneous emission spectrum, leading to the broadband ASE noise power spectral density.
A new type of bidirectional coherent optical communication system is proposed combining unidirectional optical signal amplification. We analyze the application of discrete Raman amplifier (DRA) on the basis of dispersion compensating fiber in this system, and optimize the amplifier configuration considering the influence factors such as Rayleigh backscattering noise and amplified spontaneous emission noise. In addition, the gain and pump efficiency improvement in a novel design of double-pass DRA. The feasibility of the single-fiber bidirectional coherent optical communication system is ensured by the theoretical analyses and MATLAB coding. The system greatly decreases the phase shift problem caused by the frequency offset between the transmitter and local oscillator as well as the laser linewidth. It has practical value for secure communication systems.
We examine application of optical amplification to coherent lidar for the case of a weak return signal (a number of quanta of the return optical field close to unity). We consider the option that has been explored to date, namely, incorporation of an optical amplifier operated in a linear manner located after reception of the signal and immediately prior to heterodyning and photodetection. We also consider alternative strategies where the coherent interaction, the nonlinear processes, and the amplification are not necessarily constrained to occur in the manner investigated to date. We include the complications that occur because of mechanisms that occur at the level of a few, or one, quantum excitation. Two factors combine in the work to date that limit the value of the approach. These are: (1) the weak signal tends to require operation of the amplifier in the linear regime where the important advantages of nonlinear optical processing are not accessed, (2) the linear optical amplifier has a -3dB noise figure (SN(out)/SN(in)) that necessarily degrades the signal. Some improvement is gained because the gain provided by the optical amplifier can be used to overcome losses in the heterodyned process and photodetection. The result, however, is that introduction of an optical amplifier in a well optimized coherent lidar system results in, at best, a modest improvement in signal to noise. Some improvement may also be realized on incorporating more optical components in a coherent lidar system for purely practical reasons. For example, more compact, lighter weight, components, more robust alignment, or more rapid processing may be gained. We further find that there remain a number of potentially valuable, but unexplored options offered both by the rapidly expanding base of optical technology and the recent investigation of novel nonlinear coherent interference phenomena occurring at the single quantum excitation level. Key findings are: (1) insertion of linear optical amplifiers in well optimized conventional lidar systems offers modest improvements, at best, (2) the practical advantages of optical amplifiers, especially fiber amplifiers, such as ease of alignment, compactness, efficiency, lightweight, etc., warrant further investigation for coherent lidar, (3) the possibility of more fully optical lidar systems should be explored, (4) advantages gained by use of coherent interference of optical fields at the level of one, or a few, signal quanta should be explored, (5) amplification without inversion, population trapping, and use of electromagnetic induced transparency warrant investigation in connection with coherent lidar, (6) these new findings are probably more applicable to earth related NASA work, although applications to deep space should not be excluded, and (7) our own work in the Ultrafast Laboratory at UAH along some of the above lines of investigation, may be useful.
Precise frequency comparisons are becoming more urgent given the recent rapid progress in next-generation frequency standards. This paper describes a new type of bidirectional optical amplifier that overcomes the fiber loss limits that have prevented accurate frequency comparisons between widely separated places; such comparison is realized by bidirectionally transmitting wavelength-division-multiplexed (WDM) signals along a single fiber. The proposed optical amplifier has an optical isolator in each two-way channel divided by wavelength filters to suppress the optical reflection that causes amplification instability. The additional insertion optical loss due to this method is about 1.5 dB. The optical gain greater than 30 dB is obtained for both signals with good optical isolation of 65 dB. A radio-frequency reference signal can directly be sent by simple intensity modulation and direct detection (IM-DD) devices in the 1550-nm region widely used in telecommunication networks. Phase comparisons of the received signals and the frequency standards at each terminal are used for frequency comparisons. The amplifier is tested in the field using two hydrogen masers. A 120-km fiber with loss of 52.5 dB is used to connect the National Metrology Institute of Japan (NMIJ) to the University of Tokyo. Because of this loss, an amplifier is needed to realize sufficient receiving power. The frequency stability of the system with a 10-MHz direct transmission is evaluated by returning the optical signal from a halfway point [55 km from the NMIJ] where the amplifier is installed. The result is 2.6 × 10-16(Allan deviation) with the averaging time of 7 × 104s. The laboratory result is 8.7 × 10-17(¿ = 4 × 104s). The amplifier's long-term stability is promising for stable frequency dissemination in addition to precise frequency comparisons.
As light propagates through a transmission media, such as an optical fiber, it experiences a length-dependent loss which can reduce the communication efficiency as the transmission distance increases. In conventional telecommunications, optical signals can be transmitted over inter-continental distances, due to deterministic all-optical amplifiers. However, quantum communications are still limited to transmission distances of typically a few 100’s km since deterministic amplifiers cannot be used to amplify quantum signals. The use of deterministic amplification on a quantum signal will introduce noise that will mask the original quantum properties of the signal, introducing uncertainty or errors to any measurement. Nondeterministic methods for amplifying quantum signals via post-selection can be used instead, providing a solution to create a low noise quantum amplifier. Several methods for nondeterministic amplification have already been experimentally demonstrated. However, these devices rely on “quantum resources” which makes implementation challenging. Here we present an overview of experimental demonstrations for amplifying coherent states using a method called state comparison amplification. This is a nondeterministic protocol that performs amplification of known sets of phase-encoded coherent states using two modular stages. The outcome of each stage is recorded using single-photon detectors and time-stamped electronics to enable post-selection. State comparison amplification is a relatively simple technique, only requiring “off-the-shelf” components. The presentation will show several demonstrations of state comparison amplification including an amplifier which has high gain, fidelity, and success rate with the added advantage of being robust to channel noise and easily reconfigurable. Finally, we will discuss the effect of introducing a feedforward mechanism allowing for unsuccessful state amplifications.
The amplification before detection of the carrier of a modulated optical signal by a narrow-band quantum amplifier enhances the signal-to-noise ratio, particularly when the signal wave-front is distorted. A further improvement is obtained by using a combination of wide-band and narrow-band quantum amplifiers. The practical application of these schemes requires a degenerate regenerative ring-type amplifier capable of amplifying arbitrary transverse field configurations. Experiments show that such an amplifier with a gain of 24 dB and a bandwidth of 1 MHz is feasible. The incident beam axis can be displaced by as much as ten times the beam-waist radius without losing more than 4 dB in gain. Frequency modulation may be converted into amplitude modulation by the phase shift introduced in the carrier.