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Chinese Physics B

Passively stabilized single-photon interferometer

Hailong Liu, Minjie Wang, Jiaxin Bao, Chao Liu, Ya Li, Shujing Li, Hai Wang

Published Mar 2, 2022• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

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.

DOI
10.1088/1674-1056/ac597b

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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.
Entangled photon pairs are critically important in fundamental quantum mechanics research as well as in many areas within the field of quantum information, such as quantum communication, quantum computation, and quantum cryptography. Previous demonstrations of entangled photons based on atomic ensembles were achieved by using a reference laser to stabilize the phase of two spontaneous four-wave mixing paths. Here, we demonstrate a convenient and efficient scheme to generate polarization-entangled photons with a narrow bandwidth of $57.2\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}1.6$ MHz and a high-fidelity of $96.3\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}0.8%$ by using a phase self-stabilized multiplexing system formed by two beam displacers and two half-wave plates where the relative phase between the different signal paths can be eliminated completely. It is possible to stabilize an entangled photon pair for a long time with this system and produce all four Bell states, making this a vital step forward in the field of quantum information.
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.
Abstract We report on a novel phase-locking technique for fiber-based Mach–Zehnder interferometers based on discrete single-photon detections, and demonstrate this in a setup. Our interferometer decodes relative-phase-encoded optical pulse pairs for quantum key distribution applications and requires no locking laser in addition to the weak received signal. Our new simple locking scheme is shown to produce an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck dynamic and achieve optimal phase noise for a given count rate. In case of wavelength drifts that arise during the reception of Doppler-shifted satellite signals, the arm-length difference gets continuously readjusted to keep the interferometer phase stable.
In this paper, we report on a scheme to generate a pulsed polarization entangled photon pair through the use of a Sagnac interferometer. To demonstrate its workability, we experimentally obtained two-photon quantum interference for the polarization variable. The main advantage of this scheme is its exceptional stability, compared to other schemes based on the interferometric technique. It does not need any active or passive techniques to stabilize the interferometer, even the instrument is exposed to a relatively turbulent environment.
Interferometric stability of polarization-entangled photons in quantum repeaters for long time intervals is an important capability for future scalable quantum networks linked over distances greater than hundreds of kilometers. A quantum memory node is a necessary component of the quantum repeater, where entanglement is prepared and swapped to extend entangled states from remote to distant nodes. Room temperature fluctuations can have significant effects on phase stability of the polarization states stored in the quantum memory. Although common-path stabilization in a quantum memory has been demonstrated, passive stabilization to room temperature variations has not been realized. Our approach to the quantum memory uses a single collective excitation encoded in two separate spatial modes in a cold ensemble of rubidium atoms. The two spatial modes are combined into a single path using the birefringence of two calcite crystals. However, normal lab temperature changes introduces a phase shift between the ordinary and extraordinary pathways on the order of 2π. We demonstrate passive temperature stabilization by alignment of the ordinary path in one crystal to the extraordinary path in the second crystal and vice versa. We show a phase stability on the order of ten hours by homodyne detection of classical light modes exiting the interferometer. We corroborate the phase stability of the quantum memory with a correlation measurement between polarization states of a signal photon generated at the formation of the collective atomic excitation and a retrieved idler photon during the destruction of the atomic excitation. We measure a Bell-CHSH parameter for both the unstable configuration and for the stable configuration. For an unstable calcite crystal configuration, we do not measure a violation of the Bell-CHSH inequality1 (S≤2) with S = 1.42 ± 0.087. For the stable calcite crystal configuration, we measure a violation of Bell-CHSH inequality (S>2) with S = 2.48±0.099.
Optical quantum-nondemolition devices can provide essential tools for quantum information processing. Here, we describe several optical interferometers that signal the presence of a single photon in a particular input state without destroying it. We discuss both entanglement-assisted and nonentanglement-assisted interferometers, with ideal and realistic detectors. We found that the existing detectors with 88% quantum efficiency and single-photon resolution can yield output fidelities of up to 89%, depending on the input state. Furthermore, we construct expanded protocols to perform quantum-nondemolition detections of single photons that leave the polarization invariant. For detectors with 88% efficiency, we found polarization-preserving output fidelities of up to 98.5%.