Z. Y. Ou

Quantum metrology with parametric amplifier-based photon correlation interferometers

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±0.3u2009dB 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.

Realization of a nonlinear interferometer with parametric amplifiers

We construct an interferometer with parametric amplifiers as beam splitters. Because of the gain in the parametric amplifiers, the maximum output intensity of the interferometer can be much bigger than the input intensity as well as the intensity inside the interferometer (the phase sensing intensity). We find that the fringe intensity depends quadratically on the intensity of the phase sensing field at high gain. This type of nonlinear interferometer has better sensitivity than the traditional linear interferometer made of beam splitters with the same phase sensing intensity.

Mode-locked two-photon states.

The concept of mode locking in laser is applied to a two-photon state with frequency entanglement. Cavity enhanced parametric down conversion is found to produce exactly such a state. The mode-locked two-photon state exhibits a comblike correlation function. An unbalanced Hong-Ou-Mandel type interferometer is used to measure the correlation function. A revival of the typical interference dip is observed. We will discuss a scheme for engineering of quantum states in time domain.

Experimental demonstration of phase measurement precision beating standard quantum limit by projection measurement

We propose and demonstrate experimentally a projection scheme to measure the quantum phase with a precision beating the standard quantum limit. The initial input state is a twin Fock state |N,N proposed by Holland and Burnett (Phys. Rev. Lett., 71 (1993) 1355) but the phase information is extracted by a quantum state projection measurement. The phase precision is about 1.4/N for large photon number N, which approaches the Heisenberg limit of 1/N. Experimentally, we employ a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion and achieve a phase uncertainty of 0.291±0.001 beating the standard quantum limit of for four photons.

All-fiber source of frequency-entangled photon pairs

We present an all-fiber source of frequency-entangled photon pairs by using four-wave mixing in a Sagnac fiber loop. Special care is taken to suppress the impurity of the frequency entanglement by cooling the fiber and by matching the polarization modes of the photon pairs counterpropagating in the fiber loop. Coincidence detection of signal and idler photons, which are created in pair and in different spatial modes of the fiber loop, shows the quantum interference in the form of spatial beating, while the single counts of the individual signal (idler) photons keep constant. When the production rate of photon pairs in each propagation direction of the fiber loop is about 0.065 pairs/pulse, the envelope of the quantum interference reveals a visibility of

Demonstration of temporal distinguishability in a four-photon state and a six-photon state.

(95ifmmodepmelsetextpmfi{}2)%

Four-photon interference with asymmetric beam splitters

, which is close to the calculated theoretical limit 98.7%.

Projection measurement of the maximally entangled N -photon state for a demonstration of the N -photon de Broglie wavelength

An experiment is performed to demonstrate the temporal distinguishability of a four-photon state and a six-photon state, both from parametric down-conversion. The experiment is based on a multiphoton interference scheme in a recently discovered projection measurement of a maximally entangled N-photon state. By measuring the visibility of the interference dip, we can distinguish the various scenarios in the temporal distribution of the pairs and, thus, quantitatively determine the degree of temporal distinguishability of a multiphoton state.

Fiber-based source of photon pairs at telecom band with high temporal coherence and brightness for quantum information processing

Two experiments of four-photon interference are performed with two pairs of photons from parametric downconversion with the help of asymmetric beam splitters. The first experiment is a generalization of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interference effect to two pairs of photons while the second one utilizes this effect to demonstrate a four-photon de Broglie wavelength of lambda/4 by projection measurement.

The phase sensitivity of an SU(1,1) interferometer with coherent and squeezed-vacuum light

We construct a projection measurement process for the maximally entangled N-photon state [the NOON state (|N,0>+|0,N>)/{radical}(2)] with only linear optical elements and photodetectors. This measurement process will give null result for any N-photon state that is orthogonal to the NOON state. We examine the projection process in more detail for N=4 by applying it to a four-photon state from type-II parametric down-conversion. This demonstrates an orthogonal projection measurement with a null result. This null result corresponds to a dip in a generalized Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer for four photons. We find that the depth of the dip in this arrangement can be used to distinguish a genuine entangled four-photon state from two separate pairs of photons. We next apply the NOON state projection measurement to a four-photon superposition state from two perpendicularly oriented type-I parametric down-conversion processes. A successful NOON state projection is demonstrated with the appearance of the four-photon de Broglie wavelength in the interference fringe pattern.