Super-sensitive phase estimation with coherent boosted light using parity measurements

We consider a passive and active hybrid interferometer for phase estimation, which can reach the sub-shot-noise limit in phase sensitivity with only the cheapest coherent sources. This scheme is formed by adding an optical parametric amplifier before a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. It is shown that our hybrid protocol can obtain a better quantum Cramer-Rao bound than the pure active(e.g., SU(1,1)) interferometer, and this precision can be reached by implementing the parity measurements. Furthermore, we also draw a detailed comparison between our scheme and the scheme suggested by Caves[Phys. Rev. D 23 1693(1981)], and it is found that the optimal phase sensitivity gain obtained in our scheme is always larger than that in Caves' scheme.     

双数态输入型M-Z干涉仪中量子相位的最大似然估计和贝叶斯分析

本文采用最大似然估计和贝叶斯分析两种方法,对双数态输入型马赫-曾德尔干涉仪中的量子相位估计进行研究.通过对干涉仪输出端粒子数差和宇称进行理论计算和数值模拟,发现采用贝叶斯分析和粒子数差测量的组合,可以在全相位空间实现最优测量,即待估相位精度达到由量子克拉美罗下界所给定的测量极限,同时,利用贝叶斯分析进行相位估计所需样本数较最大似然估计更少.在通过宇称测量进行相位估计的研究中,发现无法利用贝叶斯分析实现相位估计,但可采用最大似然估计进行研究.借助蒙特卡洛数值模拟分析,我们验证了理论计算结果,即相位估计精度会随待估相位θ₀的变化而改变,将其与粒子数差测量结果对比,进一步确认了粒子数差测量方案的优越性.     

Mach-Zehnder interferometry at the Heisenberg limit with coherent and squeezed-vacuum light

We show that the phase sensitivity Deltatheta of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer illuminated by a coherent state in one input port and a squeezed-vacuum state in the other port is (i) independent of the true value of the phase shift and (ii) can reach the Heisenberg limit Deltatheta approximately 1/N(T), where N(T) is the average number of input particles. We also demonstrate that the Cramer-Rao lower bound of phase sensitivity, Deltatheta approximately 1/square root[|alpha|(2)e(2r)+sinh(2)r], can be saturated for arbitrary values of the squeezing parameter r and the amplitude of the coherent mode alpha by using a Bayesian phase inference protocol.     

Angle of arrival estimation using spectral interferometry

We have developed a correlative signal processing concept based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and spatial-spectral (S2) materials that enables direct mapping of RF spectral phase as well as power spectral recording. This configuration can be used for precise frequency resolved time delay estimation between signals received by a phased antenna array system that in turn could be utilized to estimate the angle of arrival. We present an analytical theoretical model and a proof-of-principle demonstration of the concept of time difference of arrival estimation with a cryogenically cooled Tm:YAG crystal that operates on microwave signals modulated onto a stabilized optical carrier at 793 nm.     

Stable single-photon interference in a 1 km fiber-optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer with continuous phase adjustment

We experimentally demonstrate stable and user-adjustable single-photon interference in a 1 km long fiber-optic Mach-Zehnder interferometer, using an active phase control system with the feedback provided by a classical laser. We are able to continuously tune the single-photon phase difference between the interferometer arms using a phase modulator, which is synchronized with the gate window of the single-photon detectors. The phase control system employs a piezoelectric fiber stretcher to stabilize the phase drift in the interferometer. A single-photon net visibility of 0.97 is obtained, yielding future possibilities for experimental realizations of quantum repeaters in optical fibers and violation of Bell's inequalities using genuine energy-time entanglement.     

Analysis of Mach-Zehnder interferometer with two degenerated optical parametric amplifiers

We have analyzed a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with one or two degenerated parametric amplifiers, one for each arm. The photocurrent, its variance, and the phase fluctuation are obtained. The photon statistics of the entangled state exiting the interferometer is described by means of the Mandel Q parameter.     

Digital holography of self-luminous objects by using a Mach-Zehnder setup

We describe a method where the wavefront emitted by a self-luminous object is superimposed to its filtered counterpart by using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. The amplitude and phase of the resulting interference pattern is used for digital three-dimensional imaging. Experimental results are presented.     

Nonequilibrium dephasing in an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer

We study nonequilibrium dephasing in an electronic Mach-Zehnder interferometer. We demonstrate that the shot noise at the beam splitter of the interferometer generates an ensemble of nonequilibrium electron density configurations and that electron interactions induce configuration-specific phase shifts of an interfering electron. The resulting dephasing exhibits two characteristic features, a lobe pattern in the visibility and phase jumps of pi, in good agreement with experimental data.     

Mach–Zehnder interferometer with squeezed and EPR entangled optical fields

We study a scheme for Mach-Zehnder(MZ) interferometer as a quantum linear device by injecting two-mode squeezed input states into two ports of interferometer.Two-mode squeezed states can be changed into two types of inputs for MZ interferometer:two squeezed states and Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen(EPR) entangled states.The interference patterns of the MZ interferometer vary periodically as the relative phase of the two arms of the interferometer is scanned,and are measured by the balanced homodyne detection system.Our experiments show that there are different interference patterns and periodicity of the output quantum states for two cases which depend on the relative phase of input optical fields.Since MZ interferometer can be used to realize some quantum operations,this work will have the important applications in quantum information and metrology.     

Spatial-Variant Geometric Phase of Hybrid-Polarized Vector Optical Fields

We investigate a novel spatial geometric phase of hybrid-polarized vector fields consisting of linear, elliptical and circular polarizations by Young's two-slit interferometer instead of the widely used Mach-Zehnder interferometer.This spatial geometric phase can be manipulated by engineering the spatial configuration of hybrid polarizations,and is directly related to the topological charge, the local states of polarization and the rotational symmetry of hybrid-polarized vector optical fields. The unique feature of geometric phase has implications in quantum information science as well as other physical systems such as electron vortex beams.     

Photonic microwave phase shifter/modulator based on a nonlinear optical loop mirror incorporating a Mach-Zehnder interferometer

We realize a novel photonic microwave phase shifter/modulator based on a nonlinear optical loop mirror incorporating a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. A near-linear phase shifter exceeding 180 degrees and a phase modulation with 2.5 Gbit/s baseband signal are obtained for a 10 GHz microwave signal by this proposed device.     

Local and global distinguishability in quantum interferometry

A statistical distinguishability based on relative entropy characterizes the fitness of quantum states for phase estimation. This criterion is employed in the context of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer and used to interpolate between two regimes of local and global phase distinguishability. The scaling of distinguishability in these regimes with photon number is explored for various quantum states. It emerges that local distinguishability is dependent on a discrepancy between quantum and classical rotational energy. Our analysis demonstrates that the Heisenberg limit is the true upper limit for local phase sensitivity. Only the "NOON" states share this bound, but other states exhibit a better trade-off when comparing local and global phase regimes.     

A wave-particle delayed-choice experiment with a single-photon state

We perform a new wave-particle delayed-choice experiment which uses photon pairs produced by parametric fluorescence. One of the photons of a pair serves as a trigger photon, the other one traverses a Mach-Zehnder ring interferometer. The trigger photon switches the interferometer between registration of either pathway information or phase information for the second photon. The result turns out to be independent of whether the switching process takes place before or after the photon passes the first beamsplitter of the interferometer.     

Adaptive wave-front correction by means of all-optical feedback interferometry

A novel adaptive wave-front correction system based on an all-optical feedback interferometer is described. In this system the two-dimensional output fringe intensity from a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with large radial shear is optically fed back to an optically addressed phase-only liquid-crystal spatial light modulator. Consequently, without a separate aberration-free reference wave, the modulator phase approximates the conjugate of the interferometer phase that is directly related to the phase of the input aberrated wave front, so this system is applicable in adaptive optics. We successfully achieved real-time correction of aberrated wave fronts: A diffraction pattern that was seriously distorted because of aberrations was transformed into a diffraction-limited spot immediately after the feedback loop was closed.     

Phase estimation of phase shifts in two arms for an SU(1,1) interferometer with coherent and squeezed vacuum states

We theoretically study the quantum Fisher information(QFI) of the SU(1,1) interferometer with phase shifts in two arms by coherent ? squeezed vacuum state input, and give the comparison with the result of phase shift only in one arm.Different from the traditional Mach–Zehnder interferometer, the QFI of single-arm case for an SU(1,1) interferometer can be slightly higher or lower than that of two-arm case, which depends on the intensities of the two arms of the interferometer.For coherent ? squeezed vacuum state input with a fixed mean photon number, the optimal sensitivity is achieved with a squeezed vacuum input in one mode and the vacuum input in the other.     

Comment on "Phase-shifting shearing interferometer"

The role of the liquid-crystal layer in the phase-shifting shearing interferometer that was proposed by Griffin [Opt. Lett. 26, 140 (2001)] is analyzed. An extra voltage-dependent phase difference is produced when the phase retarder is oriented at an angle from the optical axis of the laser beam such that the interferogram will not repeat itself after a 2pi phase change of the liquid-crystal retarder in either the common Mach-Zehnder interferometer or the phase-shifting shearing interferometer.     

高消光比双通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪梳状滤波器

提出了一种新颖结构的高消光比双通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪梳状滤波器，将常规单通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪的两个输出端与光隔离器连接，构成一个双通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪梳妆滤波器，对滤波器的输出特性进行了理论分析和实验研究。数值模拟表明，与常规的单通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪相比，在相同参量的情况下该双通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪梳妆滤器的消光比得到了大大改善，消光比的提高取决于干涉仪的臂长差，当干涉仪的臂长差为0．7366mm时，消光比提高了20dB。实验结果表明，双通马赫-曾德尔干涉仪梳妆滤器的消光比为25．8dB，消光比提高了13dB。     

Sub-shot-noise phase quadrature measurement of intense light beams

We present a setup for performing sub-shot-noise measurements of the phase quadrature of intense pulsed light without the use of a separate local oscillator. A Mach-Zehnder interferometer with an unbalanced arm length is used to detect the fluctuations of the phase quadrature at a single sideband frequency. With this setup, the nonseparability of a pair of quadrature-entangled beams is demonstrated experimentally.     

Interferometric optical path measurement of a glass wedge with single photons and biphotons

We have measured the phase structure of a glass wedge with single photons and biphotons in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer using parametric downconverted light from a Hong-Ou-Mandel particle interferometer as the source. By scanning the wedge through the focus of a microscope objective we find a doubling of the period of the interference pattern in the coincidence counts for biphotons compared to the single-photon experiment. We compare our measurement setup with classical ones and discuss some of the problems of superresolution in quantum lithography.     

Bandwidth-independent linear method for detection of the carrier-envelope offset phase

We propose and demonstrate a novel linear procedure for measurement of the carrier-envelope offset (CEO) phase of femtosecond oscillators. The technique is based on a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, a ring resonator, and a spectrograph. In this scheme, interference between subsequent pulses from a pulse train may frustrate the interference between identical pulses in the Mach-Zehnder, resulting in a modification of interference contrast depending on the CEO phase. We suggest spectrally and spatially resolved interferometry for robust detection of the fringe visibility. It is shown by numerical simulations and experimentally demonstrated that the visibility of such fringes uniquely depends on the CEO phase of the pulse train. Since the method relies only on linear interactions and does not require any nonlinear conversion, it allows characterizing the CEO frequency of mode-locked oscillators with virtually arbitrarily low bandwidth and power levels.