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Journal of Modern Optics

Nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer with ultrabroadband squeezed light

D. B. Horoshko, Mikhail I. Kolobov, Fabian Gumpert, I. Shand, Friedrich König, Maria V. Chekhova

Published Oct 8, 2019• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study both theoretically and experimentally the interference pattern in a nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer formed by two aperiodically-poled crystals, where broadband squeezed light is generated by both crystals via parametric down-conversion with a common quasi-monochromatic pump. This configuration is important for measuring the squeezing produced by the first crystal and also for measuring a small phase shift introduced by a sample between the crystals. On the basis of the approximate quantum Rosenbluth formula for each crystal we develop an analytic model for the field evolution in the interferometer. We report an experimental observation of the interference fringes, caused by the dispersion of the generated PDC waves in both crystals forming the interferometer. We observe a displacement of the interference pattern caused by a sample between the crystals and infer the phase shift within a band of 20 nm. The experimental data are in a good agreement with the predictions of the developed model, up to imperfections of the samples.

DOI
10.1080/09500340.2019.1674394

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We study both theoretically and experimentally the interference pattern in a nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer formed by two aperiodically-poled crystals, where broadband squeezed light is generated by both crystals via parametric down-conversion with a common quasi-monochromatic pump. This configuration is important for measuring the squeezing produced by the first crystal and also for measuring a small phase shift introduced by a sample between the crystals. On the basis of the approximate quantum Rosenbluth formula for each crystal we develop an analytic model for the field evolution in the interferometer. We report an experimental observation of the interference fringes, caused by the dispersion of the generated PDC waves in both crystals forming the interferometer. We observe a displacement of the interference pattern caused by a sample between the crystals and infer the phase shift within a band of 20 nm. The experimental data are in a good agreement with the predictions of the developed model, up to imperfections of the samples.
We present a quantum theory of parametric down-conversion of light in chirped quasi-phase-matched second-order nonlinear crystals with undepleted quasimonochromatic pump. This theory allows us to consider generation of ultrabroadband squeezed states of light and is valid for arbitrary, sufficiently slowly varying nonlinear poling profiles. Using a first-order approximate quantum solution for the down-converted light field, we calculate the squeezing spectra and the characteristic squeezing angles. We compare the approximate solutions with the exact and numerical ones and find a very good agreement. This comparison validates our approximate solution in the regime of moderate gain, where the existing approaches are not applicable. Our results demonstrate that aperiodically poled crystals are very good candidates for generating ultrabroadband squeezed light with the squeezing bandwidth covering almost all the optical spectrum and the correlation time approaching a single optical cycle.
We observe at record-high speed the nonclassical nature of ultra-broadband bi-photons, reducing the measurement time by four orders of magnitude compared to standard techniques of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference or sum-frequency generation. We measure the quantum state of the broadband bi-photons, amplitude and phase, with a pairwise Mach-Zehnder quantum interferometer, where bi-photons that are generated in one nonlinear crystal are enhanced (constructive interference) or diminished (destructive interference) in another crystal, depending on the bi-photon phase. We verify the quantum nature of the interference by observing the dependence of the fringe visibility on internal loss. Since destructive interference is equivalent to an attempt to annihilate in the second crystal (by up-conversion) the bi-photons that were created in the first crystal (by down-conversion), the fringe visibility is a measure for the quantum bi-photon purity of the broadband light. The measurement speed-up is due to the large homodyne-like gain from the strong pump ( ⁣∼ ⁣107−9\!\sim\!10^{7-9}∼107−9) in the up-conversion efficiency of single bi-photons, which enables the use of simple photo-detection of the full, ultra-high photon flux instead of single-photon / coincidence counting.
We observe at record-high speed the nonclassical nature of ultra-broadband bi-photons, reducing the measurement time by four orders of magnitude compared to standard techniques of Hong–Ou–Mandel interference or sum-frequency generation. We measure the quantum wave-function of the broadband bi-photons, amplitude and phase, with a pairwise 'Mach–Zehnder' quantum interferometer, where bi-photons that are generated in one nonlinear crystal are enhanced (constructive interference) or diminished (destructive interference) in another crystal, depending on the bi-photon phase. We verify the quantum nature of the interference by observing the dependence of the fringe visibility on internal loss. Since destructive interference is equivalent to an attempt to annihilate in the second crystal (by up-conversion) the bi-photons that were created in the first crystal (by down-conversion), the fringe visibility is a measure of the quantum bi-photon purity of the broadband light. The measurement speed-up is due to the large homodyne-like gain from the strong pump (∼10 7–9 ) in the up-conversion efficiency of single bi-photons, which enables the use of simple photo-detection of the full, ultra-high photon flux instead of single-photon/coincidence counting.
Summary form only given. In aperiodically poled quasi-phase-matching (QPM) crystals, parametric down-conversion (PDC) can generate very broadband pulsed squeezed light. This is because each part of the crystal will generate squeezed light at a different frequency [1]. But the emission will be thus inhomogeneously broadened, and one requires special measures to eliminate the chirp accompanying the pulses. This can be done by placing a group-velocity dispersion material after the crystal [2] or by specially designing the nonlinear grating [3]. If the bandwidth of squeezed light is large enough, the squeezing and photon-number correlations, after the chirp is removed, will be “single-cycle”, with the correlation time comparable to one optical cycle [4].In this work, the first results on such broadband squeezing are demonstrated. In the 5-mm-long aperiodically poled MgO:LiNbO3 crystal we use, the QPM grating period changes from 7.38 μm to 8.91 μm. With this device, we generated bright twin beams through collinear frequency-nondegenerate high-gain PDC. The phase chirp was eliminated through the design of the nonlinear grating. The frequency bandwidth was measured to be 17 THz, a factor of 15 larger than in a periodically poled crystal. The correlation time was measured using non-phase matched sum frequency generation from the signal and idler beams. The dependence of the sum frequency intensity on the time delay between the signal and idler beams is shown in Fig.1. Fine-resolution scanning (b) shows a narrow peak, demonstrating a correlation time of 90 fs. It can be further reduced by using more advanced grating designs.
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.
A pair of light quanta with different colors (155.9-nm difference in center wavelength) generated from parametric down-conversion was injected collinearly into one input port of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. Coincidence interference behavior was studied over a wide range of optical path differences of the interferometer. A measurement of 75% interference visibility with oscillation of the pump frequency for a large optical path difference of the interferometer (43 cm) is the signature of a quantum two-photon entangled state, which reflects both particle and wave nature of the light quanta in one experiment.