We present a simple and robust design for a squeezing-enhanced Sagnac interferometer that employs the concept of SU(1,1) interference to significantly surpass the classical sensitivity limit (shot-noise limit, SNL) in rotational sensing. By strategically placing an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) inside the Sagnac loop, light is automatically squeezed in both forward and backward directions of the loop, which enhances the detectability of a small phase. For measuring the squeezed quadrature, we explore two approaches: Direct detection of the output intensity, which is simple but requires a high-efficiency photo-detector; and parametric homodyne with an additional OPA, which accepts practical detectors with no efficiency limitation, but is technically more complex. Our analysis demonstrates super-classical sensitivity under most realistic conditions of loss and detector inefficiency, thereby leveraging the resources of squeezing and the principles of SU(1,1) interference, while maintaining compatibility with standard Sagnac configurations.
We present a simple and robust design for a squeezing-enhanced Sagnac interferometer that employs the concept of SU(1,1) interference to significantly surpass the classical sensitivity limit (shot-noise limit, SNL) in rotational sensing. By strategically placing an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) inside the Sagnac loop, light is automatically squeezed in both forward and backward directions of the loop, which enhances the detectability of a small phase. For measuring the squeezed quadrature, we explore two approaches: Direct detection of the output intensity, which is simple but requires a high-efficiency photo-detector; and parametric homodyne with an additional OPA, which accepts practical detectors with no efficiency limitation, but is technically more complex. Our analysis demonstrates super-classical sensitivity under most realistic conditions of loss and detector inefficiency, thereby leveraging the resources of squeezing and the principles of SU(1,1) interference, while maintaining compatibility with standard Sagnac configurations.
We present a simple and robust design for a squeezing-enhanced Sagnac interferometer that employs the concept of SU(1,1) interference to significantly surpass the classical sensitivity limit (shot-noise limit - SNL) in rotational sensing. By strategically placing an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) inside the Sagnac loop, light is automatically squeezed in both forward and backward directions of the loop, which enhances the detectability of a small phase. For measuring the squeezed quadrature, we explore two approaches: Direct detection of the output intensity, which is simple, but requires a high-efficiency photo-detector; and parametric homodyne with an additional OPA, which accepts practical detectors with no efficiency limitation, but is technically more complex. Our analysis demonstrates super-classical sensitivity under most realistic conditions of loss and detector inefficiency, thereby leveraging the resources of squeezing and the principles of SU(1,1) interference, while maintaining compatibility with standard Sagnac configurations.
We present a simple and robust design for a squeezing-enhanced Sagnac interferometer that significantly surpasses the the shot-noise limit of sensitivity in rotational sensing. By strategically placing an optical parametric amplifier (OPA) inside the Sagnac loop, light is automatically squeezed in both forward and backward directions of the loop, which enhances the detectability of a small phase. For measuring the squeezed quadrature, we explore two approaches: parametric homodyne and direct detection. In direct detection, the intensity of the output dark port is measured directly, which is very simple, but necessitates photo-detectors of near-unit efficiency. With parametric homodyne, an additional OPA is placed at the Sagnac output to amplify the quadrature of interest above the classical noise limit, eliminating the need for near-ideal photo-detectors. Our analysis demonstrates super-classical sensitivity under most realistic conditions of loss and detector inefficiency, thereby leveraging leveraging the resources of squeezing and the principles of SU(1,1) interference, while maintaining compatibility with standard Sagnac configurations.
Quantum interferometric sensing plays a crucial role in a wide range of applications, including quantum metrology, quantum imaging, and quantum lithography, where minute phase shifts carry valuable physical information. The strength of quantum sensing lies in surpassing classical sensitivity limits, particularly through the use of quantum correlations and squeezing to suppress optical shot noise. Birefringence sensing is crucial for various applications, as it provides detailed information about the material's structure, stress, composition, and environmental conditions. We present an interferometric scheme for detecting unknown small birefringence beyond the shot-noise limit of sensitivity that leverages the hyper-squeezing (squeezed in both number-phase and polarization correlations) within a pair of polarized nonlinear SU(1,1) interferometers, coupled by the birefringence. Specifically, two pairs of crossed-polarization nonlinear media, both generate and measure two-mode quantum light that is squeezed and polarization-entangled. We present a complete theoretical analysis of the interferometer's sensitivity to small birefringence under realistic conditions of gain and internal loss, illuminating the potential for enhancement of the sensitivity by 3-15dB in practical, real-world experiments (the exact achievable enhancement is governed solely by the loss).
An important part of optical sensing is interferometry, where direct or homodyne detection at the output of an interferometer yields information about small phase shifts. Classical interferometry operates at the shot-noise limit (SNL), caused by the photon structure of light and reached when an interferometer is fed with coherent light. The use of nonclassical light at the input of an interferometer enables overcoming the SNL. In particular, squeezed light is known to be less noisy than coherent light. An interferometer fed with strongly squeezed light can, in principle, provide the phase sensitivity at the Heisenberg limit, the ultimate limit allowed by the laws of physics. However, this supersensitive operation is strongly degraded by loss – both inside the interferometer and outside it, at the stage of detection. While the former (internal loss) seems to be inevitable, the latter (detection loss) can be overcome, and we demonstrate it in our recent experiment. The clue is to amplify light at the interferometer output using a phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier. This device does not introduce additional noise, but it amplifies the fragile quantum signal and thus makes it tolerant to loss at the detection stage. In a proof-of-principle experiment, we build a polarization Mach-Zehnder interferometer and feed it with coherent light in one port and a squeezed vacuum in another port. At one output port, we amplify light with an optical parametric amplifier and measure a phase sensitivity of 13 mrad for 1500 photons in the interferometer. This result, achieved with 50% detection efficiency, overcomes the SNL by 3 dB. Moreover, by using stronger amplification, we can overcome the SNL under detection efficiency as low as 13%. Our results outline a way to use squeezed light for real-life sensing, where the detection efficiency cannot be very high, especially in spectral ranges like middle-infrared or terahertz.
Squeezing-assisted interferometers achieve sub-shot-noise sensitivity to phase shifts, but losses can strongly degrade their performance. Here we present the first experimental demonstration of detection-loss tolerance for this class of interferometers employing degenerate optical parametric amplification at one output port. For 50% detection efficiency, the phase sensitivity of any interferometer with coherent and squeezed vacuum inputs would not overcome the shot-noise limit, but in our case the output amplification gives 6 dB sub-shot-noise sensitivity. We further demonstrate that robustness increases with higher gain of the output amplifier: sub-shot-noise sensitivity is achieved for detection efficiency as low as 13%. We believe that overcoming detection inefficiency will become crucial to take full advantage of quantum metrology, for example in gravitational-wave detection, quantum sensing and imaging.
High precision interferometers are the building blocks of precision metrology and the ultimate interferometric sensitivity is limited by the quantum noise. Here, we propose and experimentally demonstrate a compact quantum interferometer involving two optical parametric amplifiers and the squeezed states generated within the interferometer are directly used for the phase-sensing quantum state. By both squeezing shot noise and amplifying phase-sensing intensity the sensitivity improvement of 4.86±0.24 dB beyond the standard quantum limit is deterministically realized and a minimum detectable phase smaller than that of all present interferometers under the same phase-sensing intensity is achieved. This interferometric system has significantly potential applications in a variety of measurements for tiny variances of physical quantities.