Elanor H. Huntington

Quantum-enhanced optical phase tracking

Keeping Track of Photon Phase In optical interferometers or optical communications, information is often stored in terms of the phase of the waveform or light pulse. However, fluctuations and noise can give rise to random jitter in the phase and amplitude of the optical pulses, making it difficult to keep track of the phase. Yonezawa et al. (p. 1514) developed a technique based on quantum mechanical squeezing to determine the phase of randomly varying optical waveforms. The quantum mechanical technique enhanced the precision with which the phase could be determined and, as optical technologies continue to be miniaturized, should be helpful in applications within metrology. A quantum mechanical technique is developed to enhance the phase tracking of photons. Tracking a randomly varying optical phase is a key task in metrology, with applications in optical communication. The best precision for optical-phase tracking has until now been limited by the quantum vacuum fluctuations of coherent light. Here, we surpass this coherent-state limit by using a continuous-wave beam in a phase-squeezed quantum state. Unlike in previous squeezing-enhanced metrology, restricted to phases with very small variation, the best tracking precision (for a fixed light intensity) is achieved for a finite degree of squeezing because of Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. By optimizing the squeezing, we track the phase with a mean square error 15 ± 4% below the coherent-state limit.

Teleportation of Nonclassical Wave Packets of Light

Teleportation is demonstrated with bunches of photons. We report on the experimental quantum teleportation of strongly nonclassical wave packets of light. To perform this full quantum operation while preserving and retrieving the fragile nonclassicality of the input state, we have developed a broadband, zero-dispersion teleportation apparatus that works in conjunction with time-resolved state preparation equipment. Our approach brings within experimental reach a whole new set of hybrid protocols involving discrete- and continuous-variable techniques in quantum information processing for optical sciences.

Frequency locking of an optical cavity using linear–quadratic Gaussian integral control

We show that a systematic modern control technique such as linear–quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control can be applied to a problem in experimental quantum optics which has previously been addressed using traditional approaches to controller design. An LQG controller which includes integral action is synthesized to stabilize the frequency of the cavity to the laser frequency and to reject low frequency noise. The controller is successfully implemented in the laboratory using a dSpace digital signal processing board. One important advantage of the LQG technique is that it can be extended in a straightforward way to control systems with multiple measurements and multiple feedback loops. This work is expected to pave the way for extremely stable lasers with fluctuations approaching the quantum noise limit and which could be potentially used in a wide range of applications.

Versatile Wideband Balanced Detector for Quantum Optical Homodyne Tomography

We present a comprehensive theory and an easy to follow method for the design and construction of a wideband homodyne detector for time-domain quantum measurements. We show how one can evaluate the performance of a detector in a specific time-domain experiment based on the electronic spectral characteristic of that detector. We then present and characterize a high-performance detector constructed using inexpensive, commercially available components such as low-noise high-speed operational amplifiers and high-bandwidth photodiodes. Our detector shows linear behavior up to a level of over 13 dB clearance between shot noise and electronic noise, in the range from DC to 100 MHz. The detector can be used for measuring quantum optical field quadratures both in the continuous-wave and pulsed regimes with standard commercial mode-locked lasers.

Intensity-noise dependence of Nd:YAG lasers on their diode-laser pump source

Typically, the intensity noise of solid-state lasers is dominated by a resonant relaxation oscillation, RRO, at intermediate frequencies (kilohertz to megahertz) and by pump-source noise at frequencies below the RRO. The RRO is driven by vacuum fluctuations as well as by pump-source fluctuations and is therefore present irrespective of the pump-source noise level. However, the intensity noise at frequencies below the RRO can be substantially lowered by use of a low-noise pump source. This behavior is experimentally studied for diode-pumped Nd:YAG ring lasers. An experimental comparison is made between pumping with a single-element diode laser (SEDL) or with a diode-laser array (DLA). We find good agreement with theory for the SEDL but not for the DLA because the DLAs output intensity noise is spatially variant. We also show that pump-source frequency noise has only a minor effect on the intensity noise of the Nd:YAG laser. The requirements for low-noise operation of solid-state lasers are discussed.

Adaptive optical phase estimation using time-symmetric quantum smoothing.

Quantum parameter estimation has many applications, from gravitational wave detection to quantum key distribution. The most commonly used technique for this type of estimation is quantum filtering, using only past observations. We present the first experimental demonstration of quantum smoothing, a time-symmetric technique that uses past and future observations, for quantum parameter estimation. We consider both adaptive and nonadaptive quantum smoothing, and show that both are better than their filtered counterparts. For the problem of estimating a stochastically varying phase shift on a coherent beam, our theory predicts that adaptive quantum smoothing (the best scheme) gives an estimate with a mean-square error up to 2sqrt[2] times smaller than nonadaptive filtering (the standard quantum limit). The experimentally measured improvement is 2.24+/-0.14.

Enhancing the Security of Delayed Differential Chaotic Systems With Programmable Feedback

This brief introduces a delayed differential feedback chaos generator with a programmable feedback element. The programmable feedback allows us to implement an arbitrary nonlinearity or modulate the feedback delay time. Delayed differential feedback systems have been suggested for secure communications, and the flexibility of the programmable system is shown to enhance security against published cracking algorithms

Unconditional continuous-variable dense coding

We investigate the conditions under which unconditional dense coding can be achieved using continuous variable entanglement. We consider the effect of entanglement impurity and detector efficiency and discuss experimental verification. We conclude that the requirements for a strong demonstration are not as stringent as previously thought and are within the reach of present technology.

Quantum-limited mirror-motion estimation.

We experimentally demonstrate optomechanical motion and force measurements near the quantum precision limits set by the quantum Cramér-Rao bounds. Optical beams in coherent and phase-squeezed states are used to measure the motion of a mirror under an external stochastic force. Utilizing optical phase tracking and quantum smoothing techniques, we achieve position, momentum, and force estimation accuracies close to the quantum Cramér-Rao bounds with the coherent state, while the estimation using squeezed states shows clear quantum enhancements beyond the coherent-state bounds.

LQG control of an optical squeezer

In this paper, we consider the application of linear quadratic Gaussian (LQG) control to the problem of optimizing the level of squeezing in one of the quadratures of an optical field. Squeezed states of light can be generated when two optical fields (at fundamental and second-harmonic frequencies) interact in an optical cavity in the presence of a second-order nonlinear crystal. Our system is an optical squeezer which is modelled as a nonlinear quantum system. Suitable models for the quantum and classical noises present in the system are used and laser phase noise which arises due to mechanical vibration of the mirror(s) in the beam path is modeled as (approximately) integrated white noise. An LQG controller is synthesized and the closed loop system is simulated to validate our design.