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Journal of Physics Conference Series

Active and passive phase stabilization for the all-fiber Michelson interferometer

Mikhail S. Elezov, Mikhail Scherbatenko, Сыч Денис Васильевич, Gregory N Gol'tsman

Published Dec 1, 2018• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We put forward two methods for phase stabilization in the all-fiber Michelson interferometer. To perform passive phase stabilization, we use a heat bath for all fibers and electro-optical components, and put the interferometer in a hermetic case. To perform active phase stabilization, we monitor output power of the interferometer and develop an electronic feedback control. The phase stabilization methods enable stable interference pattern for several minutes, and can be helpful for the development of the optimal quantum receiver for coherent signals.

DOI
10.1088/1742-6596/1124/5/051014

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•Jan 1, 2020•0 citations
We put forward two methods for phase stabilization in the all-fiber Michelson interferometer. To perform passive phase stabilization, we use a heat bath for all fibers and electro-optical components, and put the interferometer in a hermetic case. To perform active phase stabilization, we monitor output power of the interferometer and develop an electronic feedback control. The phase stabilization methods enable stable interference pattern for several minutes, and can be helpful for the development of the optimal quantum receiver for coherent signals.
We report on single-photon interference experiments in a Michelson-type interferometer built with two 6-km-long fiber spools, as well as on the active stabilization of the interferometer. A weak coherent light signal was (de-) multiplexed with a strong reference light using wavelength-division multiplexing technique, and real-time feedback control technique was applied for the reference light to actively stabilize the phase fluctuation in the long-armed fiber interferometer. The stabilized interferometer showed phase stability of 0.06 rad, which corresponds to an optical path length fluctuation of 15 nm between the 6-km-long interfering arms. The raw visibility obtained without subtracting noise counts in the single-photon interference experiment was more than 98% for stabilized conditions.
By using photons to carry quantum information, optical quantum information technology plays an essential role in quantum communication, quantum metrology, and linear optical quantum computing. In recent years, the unbalanced fiber interferometer has been widely applied in preparing, manipulating, and measuring photon qubits. However, the unbalanced fiber interferometer based on fiber devices is sensitive to the environment's thermal, mechanical, and acoustic noise. Thus, phase stabilization based on feedback control is essential in utilizing an unbalanced fiber interferometer. The existing phase stabilization methods typically employ a reference laser combined with optoelectronic detection, thus introducing additional noise to photon qubits. In this paper, we propose and demonstrate a feedback control method to stabilize a phase in an unbalanced fiber interferometer by combining weak coherent reference light and single photon counting. Using theoretical analysis, we realized the phase stabilization of an unbalanced fiber Michelson interferometer with an arm-length difference of about 1 m. The results showed that the jitter of the stabilized phase is less than 0.042 rad, while the visibility of single-photon interference fringes is higher than 99%.
An actively stabilized Michelson interferometer with a long optical-path-length difference is developed to generate a phase-locked pulse pair on the order of nanoseconds. A rigid frame and a piezoelectric feedback loop enable us to stabilize an interferometer to the optical-path-length difference of up to 5.8 m within λ/20 for 1 h. It is demonstrated that this interferometer is useful for generating a phase-tunable pulse pair up to an interval of 19 ns, which opens new possibilities for measuring the long-time coherence in the nanosecond region in the field of coherent control spectroscopy.
The practical realization of long-distance entanglement-based quantum communication systems strongly rely on the observation of highly stable quantum interference between correlated single photons. This task must accompany active stabilization of the optical path lengths within the single-photon coherence length. Here, we provide two-step interferometer stabilization methods employing continuous optical length control and experimentally demonstrate two-photon quantum interference using an actively stabilized 6-km-long fiber-optic Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. The two-step active control techniques are applied for measuring highly stable two-photon interference fringes by scanning the optical path-length difference. The obtained two-photon interference visibilities with and without accidental subtraction are found to be approximately 90.7% and 65.4%, respectively.
A single-photon interferometer is a fundamental element in quantum information science. In most previously reported works, single-photon interferometers use an active feedback locking system to stabilize the relative phase between two arms of the interferometer. Here, we use a pair of beam displacers to construct a passively stable single-photon interferometer. The relative phase stabilization between the two arms is achieved by stabilizing the temperature of the beam displacers. A purely polarized single-photon-level pulse is directed into the interferometer input port. By analyzing and measuring the polarization states of the single-photon pulse at the output port, the achieved polarization fidelity of the interferometer is about 99.1±0.1%. Our passively stabilized single-photon interferometer provides a key element for generating high-fidelity entanglement between a photon and atomic memory.
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