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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Enhancing the precision of detecting weak magnetic fields based on weak-value amplification

Jing-Hui Huang, Xue-Ying Duan, Guangjun Wang, Xiangyun Hu

Published Mar 21, 2022• 13 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the amplification of a weak magnetic field with the weak-value amplification (WVA) technique based on the Faraday magneto-optic effect. By using a different scheme to perform the Mach–Zehnder interferometer with the probe in momentum space, we have demonstrated a new, to the best of our knowledge, weak measure protocol to detect the small weak magnetic field by amplifying the phase shift of the Faraday magneto-optic effect. Our numerical results show that our scheme with the WVA technique has a higher signal-to-noise ratio than the traditional optical fiber scheme with the open-loop modulation technique. Besides, considering the instrument limitations of our scheme, we have demonstrated the magnetic field resolution at the 10 − 13 T level.

DOI
10.1364/josab.447515

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We study the amplification of a weak magnetic field with the weak-value amplification (WVA) technique based on the Faraday magneto-optic effect. By using a different scheme to perform the Mach–Zehnder interferometer with the probe in momentum space, we have demonstrated a new, to the best of our knowledge, weak measure protocol to detect the small weak magnetic field by amplifying the phase shift of the Faraday magneto-optic effect. Our numerical results show that our scheme with the WVA technique has a higher signal-to-noise ratio than the traditional optical fiber scheme with the open-loop modulation technique. Besides, considering the instrument limitations of our scheme, we have demonstrated the magnetic field resolution at the 10 − 13 T level.
We study the amplification of weak magnetic field with Weak-value technique based on Faraday magneto-optic effect. By using a different scheme to perform the Sagnac interferometer with the probe in momentum space, we have demonstrated the new weak measure protocol to detect the small weak magnetic field by amplifying the phase shift of Faraday magneto-optic effect. At the given the maximum incident intensity of the initial spectrum, the detection limit of the intensity of the spectrometer and the accuracy of detecting weak magnetic field, we can theoretically give the appropriate pre-selection, post-selection and others optical structure before experiment. Our numerical results show our scheme with Weak-value technique is effective and feasible to detect weak magnetic field with magnetic field intensity lower than 10−1010^{-10}10−10 T.
Experiments based on a free-space platform have demonstrated that the weak-value amplification (WVA) technique can provide high sensitivity and precision for optical sensing and metrology. To promote this technique for real-world applications, it is more suitable to implement WVA based on an optical-fiber platform due to the lower cost, smaller scale, and higher stability. In contrast to the free-space platform, the birefringence in optical fiber is strong enough to cause polarization cross talk, and the amplitude-type noise must be taken into account. By theoretical analysis and experimental demonstration, we show that the optic-fiber-based WVA is robust in the presence of amplitude-type noise. In our experiment, even the angular misalignment on optical axes at the interface reaches 0.08 rad, and the sensitivity loss can be maintained at less than 3 dB. Moreover, the main results are valid to a simplified detection scheme that was recently proposed that is more compatible with the future design of optical-fiber-based WVA. Our results indicate the feasibility of implementing WVA based on optical fiber, which provides a possible way for designing optical sensors with higher sensitivity and stability in the future.
We introduce an ultrasensitive interferometric protocol that combines weak value amplification (WVA) with traditional interferometry. This protocol WVA+interferometry uses weak value amplification of the relative delay between two paths to enhance interferometric sensitivity. As an example, we demonstrate a proof-of-principle experiment that achieves few-attosecond timing resolution (few nanometer path length resolution) with a double-slit interferometer using only common optical components. Since our example uses only the spatial shift of double-slit interference fringes, its precision is not limited by the timing resolution of the detectors but is instead limited by the fundamental shot noise associated with classical light and the diminished technical noise. We experimentally demonstrate that the signal-to-noise ratio can be improved by one to two orders of magnitude relative to a measurement that does not use WVA. Two key conclusions are drawn: (i) Most conventional interferometric techniques primarily rely on determining the path difference (time delay or longitudinal phase), with their precision constrained by technical noise. Our protocol offers a robust solution for minimizing the technical noise in traditional interferometry, with precision in principle approaching the shot-noise limit. (ii) Although WVA has achieved significant advancements in ultrasensitive longitudinal phase measurement, its applicability is constrained by the need for broad spectral bandwidths and high-resolution spectrometers. Contrary to previous assumptions, we demonstrate that quantum-limited WVA time delay measurements are achievable with narrow band light using real weak values. Thus, the cost-effectiveness and practicality of the proposed WVA+interferometry protocol using narrow band light broaden the scope of WVA applications. This protocol holds potential for broad applications in optical metrology, quantum optics and quantum information, biomedical imaging, and interferometric telescopes for astrophysics.
The weak-value-amplification (WVA) effect, which is also called weak measurement, has been developed extensively in various sensing systems. Here, we report the actual realization of the WVA effect in spin-exchange relaxation-free atomic magnetometer system, wherein the slight separation of transverse momentum of the probe light is amplified by introducing orthogonal pre- and post-selection states. A differential detector is used to obtain the transverse position of the probe light accurately in real time. The weak coupling of the magneto-optical interaction with atoms will be reflected in the differential signal. The WVA effect is observed and demonstrated directly and a high sensitivity of 8 fT/Hz is achieved. Also, we obtain the stable and distinct simulated magnetocardiography signal through our system. The present successful implementation of this probe method paves the way for further technical noise suppression and sensitivity improvement of quantum sensors.
Abstract Even though weak measurements and weak value amplification (WVA) are founded on the principles of quantum mechanics and quantum measurements, these have found widespread applications in optics due to their inherent origin in wave interference. Besides their use in addressing foundational questions of quantum mechanics or for resolving quantum paradoxes, weak measurements and WVA have thus been used for numerous metrological applications, e.g., quantification of small optical beam displacement, tiny angular rotation, determination of extremely small phase shifts, spectral shifts, unraveling weak fundamental optical effects, improved optical imaging, amplifying weak signal and extracting small physical parameters and so forth. In this review, after providing the mathematical foundation of weak measurement and WVA, some of the metrological applications of weak measurements in the classical optics domain are briefly summarized, and the controversies and debates on the potential advantages of WVA in the estimation and detection of weak signal are discussed, and the interferometric philosophy of WVA is elucidated. The experimental weak measurement and WVA schemes in the domain of quantum optics are also discussed and highlighted the new perspectives and emerging trends of weak measurements in both the classical and quantum optics domain and their prospects in the development of next‐generation ultra‐sensitive optical devices.
By choosing more orthogonality between preselection and postselection states, one can significantly improve the sensitivity in general optical quantum metrology based on the weak-value amplification (WVA) approach. However, increasing the orthogonality decreases the probability of detecting photons and makes the weak measurement difficult, especially when the weak measurement is disturbed by strong noise and the pointer is drowned in noise with a negative-decibel signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). In this article we introduce and numerically evaluate a modified weak-measurement protocol with a temporal pointer, namely, the autocorrelative weak-value amplification (AWVA) approach. Specifically, a small longitudinal time delay (tiny phase shift) $\ensuremath{\tau}$ of a Gaussian pulse is measured by implementing two simultaneous autocorrelative weak measurements under Gaussian white noise with different SNRs. The small quantities $\ensuremath{\tau}$ are obtained by measuring the autocorrelation coefficient of the pulses instead of fitting the shift of the mean value of the probe in the standard WVA technique. Simulation results show that the AWVA approach outperforms the standard WVA technique in the time domain with smaller statistical errors, remarkably increasing the precision of weak measurement under a strong noise background.