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Frontiers in Optics

Quantum Enhanced Measurement Using SU(1,1) Nonlinear Interferometers

Xiaoying Li, Nan Huo, Jiamin Li, Liang Cui, Xueshi Guo, Z. Y. Ou

Published Jan 1, 2022• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

SU(1,1) nonlinear interferometer (NLI) employs parametric amplifiers as the wave splitting and mixing elements. We show the applications of NLI in multi-parameter measurement, in phase measurement and in loss-tolerant measurement of continuous variable entanglement.
DOI
10.1364/fio.2022.fm3b.2

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•Jan 1, 2015•3 citations
A new type of quantum interferometer was recently realized that employs parametric amplifiers (PAs) as the wave splitting and mixing elements. The quantum behavior stems from the PAs, which produce quantum entangled fields for probing the phase change signal in the interferometer. This type of quantum entangled interferometer exhibits some unique properties that are different from traditional beam splitter-based interferometers such as Mach–Zehnder interferometers. Because of these properties, it is superior to the traditional interferometers in many aspects, especially in the phase measurement sensitivity. We will review its unique properties and applications in quantum metrology and sensing, quantum information, and quantum state engineering.
SU(1,1) interferometers use two active parametric amplifiers to replace passive beam splitters of traditional interferometers for wave splitting and superposition. These interferometers involve quantum entangled signal and idler fields and possess a number of advantages over traditional interferometers. Here, we investigate a variant of the SU(1,1) interferometer by using only one parametric amplifier but with either one or both of the signal and idler fields fed back to the same parametric amplifier. Such a geometry is used to accommodate an on-chip micro-ring optical parametric oscillator made of high-index silica glass. An interference fringe is observed, and quantum noise reduction of 4-dB due to destructive quantum interference is measured in the output off the chip. Such an integrated device has potential applications in on-chip precision phase sensing.
A nonlinear interferometer uses nonlinear elements as beam splitters to split and to recombine optical waves for interference. As a result, the interference fringe size has a nonlinear dependence on the intensity of the field for phase sensing and leads to an enhanced phase signal. In this paper, a practical scheme of nonlinear interferometry for precision phase measurement is analyzed with parametric amplifiers as the nonlinear beam splitters. It is found that the signal due to phase shift is enhanced by a factor of the amplification gain as compared to a linear interferometer with the same phase-sensing light intensity while the quantum noise is kept at the vacuum level, thus, effectively increasing the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) beyond the standard quantum limit. Furthermore, the scheme is not as sensitive to the detection loss as the linear scheme with a squeezed state for noise reduction. However, losses inside the interferometer limit the enhancement factor in SNR. We apply the concept to a Michelson interferometer but with parametric amplifiers involved for gravitational-wave detection. We find that effective power is increased by the gain of the amplifiers without actually increasing the cycling power inside the interferometer. Furthermore, the full benefits with squeezed input and variational output or the combination of a quantum nondemolition interferometer for sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit apply here with even better results. Such a nonlinear interferometer will find wide applications in precision measurements.
Conventional interferometers usually utilize beam splitters for wave splitting and recombination. These interferometers are widely used for precision measurement. Their sensitivity for phase measurement is limited by the shot noise, which can be suppressed with squeezed states of light. Here we study a new type of interferometer in which the beam splitting and recombination elements are parametric amplifiers. We observe an improvement of 4.1±0.3 dB in signal-to-noise ratio compared with a conventional interferometer under the same operating condition, which is a 1.6-fold enhancement in rms phase measurement sensitivity beyond the shot noise limit. The improvement is due to signal enhancement. Combined with the squeezed state technique for shot noise suppression, this interferometer promises further improvement in sensitivity. Furthermore, because nonlinear processes are involved in this interferometer, we can couple a variety of different waves and form new types of hybrid interferometers, opening a door for many applications in metrology. Interferometers play a key role in precision measurements and metrology. Here, the authors demonstrate a new type of interferometer that replaces the standard beam splitter elements with parametric amplifiers, which provides enhanced performance compared with a Mach–Zehnder interferometer.
Quantum-enhanced precision measurements have emerged as one of the most useful applications of quantum optics. Exploiting quantum states of light and quantum processes, classical measurement limits can be surpassed, leading to improvements in areas including clocks, spectroscopy, magnetometry, and imaging. One measurement where straightforward quantum enhancements are possible is phase sensing with an interferometer. One can inject squeezed vacuum states into the dark port of the beamsplitter in a traditional interferometer to reduce the quantum noise and reach phase sensitivities beyond the shot noise limit. An alternate approach is to replace the beamsplitters of an interferometer with nonlinear parametric amplifiers, which produce nonclassical states of light that can be used to surpass classical performance. This so called SU(1,1) interferometer can theoretically approach sensitivities that scale as 1/n, the Heisenberg limit where n is the interior phase sensing photon number, compared to the shot noise limit of 1/ √ n for a traditional interferometer [1]. I will present our group’s experimental progress in testing a Mach-Zender SU(1,1) interferometer using four-wave mixers (4WMs) in hot Rb atoms as the parametric beamsplitters. The 4WM process generates entangled twin beams which serve as the two arms of the interferometer, and are then recombined in a second 4WM cell, resulting in a phase-sensitive output. We will extend the work done on this interferometer [2, 3] by performing a detailed analysis of the output signal to noise through homodyne measurements, and will attempt to observe the better-than-shot-noise scaling of the sensitivity. We will also consider the various difficulties of this optical interferometer such as the susceptibility to loss and imperfect mode-matching within the interferometer. Our group is also considering an analogous SU(1,1) interferometer in a cold atom system. Collisions in a spinor Bose-Einstein condensate of sodium atoms give rise to a 4WM process that produces spin states of the atoms which are entangled in atom number. These interactions can be controlled to set up an SU(1,1) atom interferometer, where the relevant measurements are now atomic population differences rather than photon intensities. These enhancements can lead to drastic improvements in atomic spin interferometry [3, 4].