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arXiv:quant-ph/0109145 · Physical Review A

Two-mode heterodyne phase detection

Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano, Massimiliano Federico Sacchi

Published Dec 1, 1995• 45 citations
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Abstract

We present an experimental scheme that achieves ideal phase detection on a two-mode field. The two modes a and b are the signal and image band modes of a heterodyne detector, with the field approaching an eigenstate of the photocurrent Z^=a+${\mathit{b}}^{\mathrm{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}}$. The field is obtained by means of a high-gain phase-insensitive amplifier followed by a high-transmissivity beam splitter with a strong local oscillator at the frequency of one of the two modes.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.52.r4309

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We present an experimental scheme that achieves ideal phase detection on a two-mode field. The two modes a and b are the signal and image band modes of a heterodyne detector, with the field approaching an eigenstate of the photocurrent Z^=a+b\ifmmode∘\else\textdegree\fi{\mathit{b}}^{\mathrm{\ifmmode^\circ\else\textdegree\fi{}}}b\ifmmode∘\else\textdegree\fi. The field is obtained by means of a high-gain phase-insensitive amplifier followed by a high-transmissivity beam splitter with a strong local oscillator at the frequency of one of the two modes.
Two-wave mixing in photorefractive crystals has been shown to combine coherently a modulated optical signal beam with a strong pump optical field.’ For a phase-modulated signal beam, the induced index of refraction phase grating inside the crystal yields a coupling of the optical fields of the pump and signal so that subsequent intensity detection results in apparent intensity modulation of the transmitted signal or pump beams. This provides an easy way to detect phase differences between two optical beams. Some of the advantages the above scheme offers over commonly used coherent optical phase detection schemes are: no loss of 3 dB in the signal beam intensity at the 50/50 beam splitter (used to combine signal and local oscillator fields); automatic alignment of the index of refraction grating with the two incident optical wavefronts; insensitivity to slow random changes in the phases of both beams. Experimental results are given, and a new definition for the resulting mixing gain for the phase-modulated beam is introduced, through which optimal conditions for input beam intensity ratios can be found. Applications to coherent homodyne detection are discussed.
Squeezed states of light can be detected for precision measurements with a heterodyne detector by use of a bichromatic field as the local oscillator, due to the phase-sensitive nature of the device. However, divergence consists of the theoretical description of the quantum noise performance of this detector. Two existing theoretical models are briefly reviewed, with one model predicting a 3 dB quantum noise floor change in detection of two-mode squeezed light if the local oscillator is replaced by a monochromatic one, whereas the other model foretells the same noise floor no matter which local oscillator is used. An experiment on heterodyne detection of two-mode squeezed light is carried out to put the two models under test. No significant difference in the noise floor level is observed between the two detectors, showing the noiseless property of both detectors. This work should be of importance for the understanding of noise origin in optical detection and of great interest in practical application for squeezing-enhanced audio band gravitational-wave signal searching.
We experimentally study optical homodyne and heterodyne detections with the same setup, which is flexible to manipulate the signal sideband modulation. When the modulation only generates a single signal sideband, the light field measurement by mixing the single sideband at ω0 ±? with a strong local oscillator at the carrier frequency ω0on a beam splitter becomes balanced heterodyne detection. When two signal sidebands at ω0 ±? are generated and the relative phase of the two sidebands is locked, this measurement corresponds to optical balanced homodyne detection. With this setup, we may confirm directly that the signal-to-noise ratio with heterodyne detection is two-fold worse than that with homodyne detection. This work will have important applications in quantum state measurement and quantum information.
A measurement scheme to perform a repeatable phase detection on a two-mode field is presented. The interaction with the probe state (the output state of a phase-insensitive high-gain amplifier) is described by a Hamiltonian which is physically realizable in the rotating wave approximation. Information on the system is obtained through unconventional heterodyne measurements performed on the probe field after the interaction with the system. The expressions for the probability distribution and the state reduction are given.
Homodyne detection is the most effective detection scheme employed in quantum optics to characterize quantum states. It is based on mixing at a beam splitter the signal to be measured with a coherent state, called the “local oscillator,” and on evaluating the difference of the photocurrents of two photodiodes measuring the outputs of the beam splitter. If the local oscillator is much more intense than the field to be measured, the homodyne signal is proportional to the signal-field quadratures. If the local oscillator is less intense, the photodiodes can be replaced with photon-number-resolving detectors, which have a smaller dynamics but can measure the light statistics. The resulting new homodyne-like detector acquires a hybrid nature, being it capable of yielding information on both the particle-like (statistics) and wave-like (phase) properties of light signals. The scheme has been tested in the measurement of the quadratures of coherent states, bracket states and phase-averaged coherent states at different intensities of the local oscillator.
The double-homodyne and the heterodyne detection schemes for phase shifts between two synchronous modes of the electromagnetic field are analyzed in the framework of quantum estimation theory. The probability operator-valued measures (POM's) of the detectors are evaluated and compared with the ideal one in the limit of strong local reference oscillator. The present operational approach leads to a reasonable definition of phase measurement, whose sensitivity is actually related to the output r.m.s. noise of the photodetector. We emphasize that the simple-homodyne scheme does not correspond to a proper phase-shift measurements as it is just a zero-point detector. The sensitivity of all detection schemes are optimized at fixed energy with respect to the input state of radiation. It is shown that the optimal sensitivity can be actually achieved using suited squeezed states.