Switching behaviour of nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on photonic crystal geometry

Nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer (NMZI) created with photonic crystal waveguides (PCW) and with Kerr-type nonlinearity has been investigated in this paper. The NMZI has been simulated using two-dimensional finite difference time domain (2D-FDTD) method. Input verses output (I /O) characteristics have been obtained for different lengths of the nonlinear arm, nonlinear coefficients of the nonlinear arm, wavelengths of the input beam, sizes of defect rods and NMZI offset. The results obtained are compared with earlier published results of NMZI created with conventional step index waveguides (SIW). It is shown that all useful features of light switching offered by SIW-based NMZIs are also possible with PCW-based NMZIs of extremely small dimensions. Moreover, PCW-based NMZIs offer additional useful feature not available with SIW-based NMZIs.     

Impact of optical–electrical conversion responsivity in sub-sampled photonic analog-to-digital converter

This Letter investigates the impact of the photodiode(PD) saturation in a sub-sampled photonic analogto-digital converter(PADC) with two individual pulse lasers. It is essentially proved that when the optical power to the saturated PD increases, the optical–electrical conversion(OEC) responsivity and digitized output power of the PADC decrease. If femtosecond pulses are employed for the PADC sampling clock, the time-stretching process in a dispersive medium is necessary to decrease the impact of the PD saturation. In contrast, when the sampling clock with picosecond pulses is utilized, the PD saturation is more tolerable, and thus, the OEC responsivity can be improved by an increase of the optical power to the PD no matter if the time-stretching process is employed.     

Switching of one beam by another in a Kerr type nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer

This paper investigates switching of one beam by another in a Kerr type nonlinear Mach–Zehnder interferometer (NMZI) with two input ports and one output port. The present investigation has been carried out using the beam propagation method (BPM). The paper presents a detailed account on the procedures used to choose the parameters of the NMZI to make it behave like a NOT gate (inverter), an AND gate, an amplifier and a wavelength converter. The paper also gives details on the manipulation of the operating inputs of the NMZI to desired values. It is shown that the operating values of both the inputs of the NMZI can simultaneously be increased/decreased by decreasing/increasing the nonlinearity coefficient of nonlinear arm of the NMZI. Variation of NMZI length varies the operating value of only the first input, keeping the second unchanged, while variation of NMZI offset varies the operating value of only the second, keeping the first unchanged. The paper also gives a detailed account on amplification of the NMZI amplifier/wavelength converter. The present investigation is useful from the scientific as well as engineering point of view.     

CL-TWE Mach–Zehnder electro-optic modulator based on InP-MQW optical waveguides

In this Letter, we reported the preliminary results of an integrating periodically capacitive-loaded traveling wave electrode(CL-TWE) Mach–Zehnder modulator(MZM) based on InP-based multiple quantum well(MQW)optical waveguides. The device configuration mainly includes an optical Mach–Zehnder interferometer, a direct current electrode, two phase electrodes, and a CL-TWE consisting of a U electrode and an I electrode. The modulator was fabricated on a 3 in. InP epitaxial wafer by standard photolithography, inductively coupled plasma dry etching, wet etching, electroplating, etc. Measurement results show that the MZM exhibits a3 dB electro-optic bandwidth of about 31 GHz, a V_π of 3 V, and an extinction ratio of about 20 dB.     

A novel optical picosecond-duration NRZ-to-RZ format converter with simultaneous wavelength multicasting using a single-stage Mach–Zehnder modulator

We propose a novel and simple scheme to achieve NRZ-to-RZ format conversion and simultaneous wavelength multicasting based on a single-stage dual-arm electro-optic Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) and a short single mode fiber (SMF). The format conversion and wavelength multicast process are achieved by chirp compensation under the condition of generation of optical flat frequency comb. 40 Gb/s NRZ-to-RZ conversion with one-to-five multiple-wavelength channel multicasting and transmission of the NRZ and the converted signals over 200 km dispersion-managed fiber-link are successfully demonstrated by numerical simulation. Research results show that 40 Gb/s 2 ps RZ signal with wavelength-preserving can be obtained after format conversion. The converted RZ signal presents good transmission performance and can easily be multiplexed to 160 Gb/s using optical time division multiplexing (OTDM) technology. All the multicast channels can be error free after 50 km transmission. Besides, the conversion operation can also greatly reduce the timing jitter of the degraded NRZ signal due to the retiming function of the proposed scheme.     

Simulation of a flat optical frequency comb using a single-drive multi-RF Mach–Zehnder modulator in a cascaded intensity modulator chain

We proposed a scheme based on two cascaded lithium niobate intensity modulators to generate an optical frequency comb with very high flatness. Single-drive multi-RF waveforms are used for driving the first intensity modulator, and 9 lines within 1 dB power variation can be obtained. When cascading with another intensity modulator, by specially adjusting the DC bias and the drive amplitudes of the RF signals of the two intensity modulators, 27 or 45 comb lines with a spectral power variation about 1 dB are obtained. The scheme is relatively simple and adjustable, and the frequency interval of the OFC varies with microwave frequency applied on modulators.     

Frequency quadrupling using an integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator with four arms

In this paper, a novel technique to realize frequency quadrupling in the radio over fiber system is proposed. The frequency quadrupling is achieved by using an integrated Mach–Zehnder modulator (MZM) consisting of a 1 × 4 multimode interference (MMI) coupler and four optical phase modulator arms. Due to the inherent optical splitting ratio and phase relations between the outputs of the MMI coupler, the optical harmonics at + 1 order and ? 3 order are generated corresponding to four times frequency of the microwave drive signal, only by setting the DC bias voltage of the main MZM at the minimum transmission point. That leads to the integrated MZM with reduced complexity compared with the conventional dual-parallel MZM. The effect of the nonideal integrated MZM, including the splitting imbalance and the bias drift, on all the sidebands is also analyzed theoretically. The following simulation results show that the slight deviation of the ideal values would not cause great degradation of the generated optical millimeter-wave signal.     

Spectra in nested Mach–Zehnder interferometer experiments

By the means of the standard quantum mechanics formalism I present an explicit derivation of the structure of power spectra in Danan et al. and Zhou et al. experiments with nested dynamically changing Mach–Zehnder interferometers. The analysis confirms that we observe prominent, first-order peaks on frequencies related to some of the elements of the interferometer, but not on others. However, as I shall demonstrate, there are also other, weaker effects related to all relevant elements of the setup. In case of the Danan et al. setup, there are even peaks at all frequencies of element oscillations. When confronted in an experiment, these observations shall challenge the interpretation of the experiments based on anomalous trajectories of light.     

Generation of ultra-flat optical frequency comb using a balanced driven dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator

We propose and experimentally demonstrate an ultra-flat optical frequency comb(OFC) generator by a balanced driven dual parallel Mach–Zehnder modulator. Five- and seven-tone OFC with exactly equal intensity can be generated theoretically. Experimentally obtained five- and seven-tone OFC with flatness of 0.6 and 1.26 d B are demonstrated, respectively, which agrees well with the theoretical results.     

Phase precision of Mach–Zehnder interferometer in PM2.5 air pollution

This paper theoretically explores the effect of PM2.5 air pollution on the phase precision of a Mach–Zehnder interferometer. With the increasing of PM2.5 concentration, phase precision for inputs of coherent state vacuum state and inputs of coherent state squeezed vacuum state will gradually decrease and be lower than the standard quantum limit.When the value of relative humidity is increasing, the precision of two input cases is decreasing much faster. We also find that the precision for inputs of coherent state squeezed state is better than that of coherent state vacuum state when PM2.5 concentration is lower. As PM2.5 concentration increases, the precision for inputs of coherent state squeezed state decreases faster, and then the two precisions tend to be the same while the concentration is higher.     

Optimized Design and Fabrication of Mach–Zehnder Interferometer Sensor in Polymer Technology

Abstract

Without any external modulating facilities, through a precisely controlled sensing length of 11,515 μm, the integrated Mach–Zehnder interferometer sensor obtains a quadrature point and linear response in refractive index measuring range of 1.31–1.42 at the wavelength of 1,550 nm. Combined with structure optimization and surface treatment of sensing arm, the sensitivity is measured as 225.4 dB/RIU, and the sensing response time is less than 20 s to analyte solutions. Cost-efficient polymers are used as waveguide materials, and a microfluidic system is achieved.     

A cascaded photonic crystal fiber Mach–Zehnder interferometer formed by extra electric arc discharges

In this paper, a cascaded Mach–Zehnder interferometer based on a photonic crystal fiber is reported. It is demonstrated that by applying a small dose of extra arc discharge to the photonic crystal fiber sensing part which is spliced to lead-in and lead-out single-mode fibers with core offset, the in-line Mach–Zehnder interferometer could be simply cascaded. From the analysis of Fourier transformed spatial spectra and the response tests as a sensor, it is shown that such a cascaded interferometer could effectively broaden the utilizable spectral shift range for a measured value.     

Quantum Fisher Information of Entangled Coherent States in a Lossy Mach–Zehnder Interferometer

We give an analytical result for the quantum Fisher information of entangled coherent states in a lossy Mach-Zehnder interferometer recently proposed by Joo et al., [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107 （2011） 083601]. For small loss of photons, we find that the entangled coherent state can surpass the Heisenberg limit. Phrthermore, the formalism developed here is applicable to the study of phase sensitivity of multipartite entangled coherent states.     

Picosecond all-optical switching using nonlinear Mach–Zehnder with silicon subwavelength grating and photonic wire arms

We investigate the picosecond switching capabilities of a planar waveguide interferometric photonic device when used for all-optical wavelength conversion of one picosecond pulses. Our device comprises a subwavelength grating waveguide arm and a photonic wire waveguide arm in a Mach–Zehnder configuration, fabricated on the silicon-on-insulator material platform. No detrimental effects of pulse broadening for transient pulses were observed.     

Full quantum mechanical analysis of atomic three-grating Mach–Zehnder interferometry

Atomic three-grating Mach–Zehnder interferometry constitutes an important tool to probe fundamental aspects of the quantum theory. There is, however, a remarkable gap in the literature between the oversimplified models and robust numerical simulations considered to describe the corresponding experiments. Consequently, the former usually lead to paradoxical scenarios, such as the wave–particle dual behavior of atoms, while the latter make difficult the data analysis in simple terms. Here these issues are tackled by means of a simple grating working model consisting of evenly-spaced Gaussian slits. As is shown, this model suffices to explore and explain such experiments both analytically and numerically, giving a good account of the full atomic journey inside the interferometer, and hence contributing to make less mystic the physics involved. More specifically, it provides a clear and unambiguous picture of the wavefront splitting that takes place inside the interferometer, illustrating how the momentum along each emerging diffraction order is well defined even though the wave function itself still displays a rather complex shape. To this end, the local transverse momentum is also introduced in this context as a reliable analytical tool. The splitting, apart from being a key issue to understand atomic Mach–Zehnder interferometry, also demonstrates at a fundamental level how wave and particle aspects are always present in the experiment, without incurring in any contradiction or interpretive paradox. On the other hand, at a practical level, the generality and versatility of the model and methodology presented, makes them suitable to attack analogous problems in a simple manner after a convenient tuning.     

All-optical negabinary adders using Mach–Zehnder interferometer

In contrast to optoelectronics, all-optical adders are proposed where all-optical signals are used to represent the input numbers and the control signals. In addition, the all-optical adders use the negabinary modified signed-digit number representation (an extension of the negabinary number system) to represent the input digits. Further, the ultra-speed of the designed circuits is achieved due to the use of ultra-fast all-optical switching property of the semiconductor optical amplifier and Mach–Zehnder interferometer (SOA–MZI). Furthermore, two-bit per digit binary encoding scheme is employed to represent the trinary values of the negabinary modified signed-digits.     

Intensity modulation in two Mach–Zehnder interferometers using plasma dispersion in silicon-on-insulator

We present comparative measurements of two Mach–Zehnder interferometers, one with Y-junction couplers and the other with MMI couplers, both developed in silicon-on-insulator technology and using plasma dispersion effect for light phase modulation. Measurements of fiber-to-fiber losses, absorption coefficient, output intensity vs. time and extinction ratio vs. frequency have been performed at λ=1.3 μm and at λ=1.55 μm. Results are reported and discussed in this paper. Received: 18 May 2001 / Revised version: 24 September2001 / Published online: 30 October 2001     

Enhancing Phase Sensitivity in Mach–Zehnder Interferometers for Arbitrary Input States

To enhance the phase sensitivity of Mach–Zehnder interferometers,we use a tunable phase shift before the light beams are injected into the interferometer.The analytical result of the optimal phase shift is obtained,which only depends on the initial input states.For a non-zero optimal phase shift,the phase sensitivity of the interferometers in the output ports is always enhanced.We can achieve this enhancement for most states,including entangled and mixed states.The optimal phase shift is exhibit...     

Multi-ion Mach–Zehnder interferometer with artificial nonlinear interactions

We propose a method to implement a Mach-Zehnder interferometry based upon a string of trapped ions with artificial nonlinear interactions. By manipulating the coupling strength between two involved internal states of the ions, we could achieve the beam splitting/recombination with NOON states. Using current techniques for manipulating trapped ions, we discuss the experimental feasibility of our scheme and analyze some undesired uncertainty under realistic experimental environment.