Quantum metrology promises greater sensitivity for optical phase measurements than could ever be achieved classically. Here we present a theory of the phase sensitivity for the general case where the detection probability is given by an $N$ photon interference fringe. We find that the phase sensitivity has a complex dependence on both the intrinsic efficiency of detection $η$ and the interference fringe visibility $V$. Most importantly, the phase that gives maximum phase sensitivity is in general not the same as the phase at which the slope of the interference fringe is a maximum, as has previously been assumed. We determine the parameter range where quantum enhanced sensitivity can be achieved. In order to illustrate these theoretical results, we perform a four photon experiment with $η=3/4$ and $V=82\pm6$% (an extension of our previous work [Science \textbf{316}, 726 (2007)]) and find a phase sensitivity 1.3 times greater than the standard quantum limit at a phase different to that which gives maximum slope of the interference fringe.
The uncertainty principle, applied naively to the test masses of a laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detector, produces a Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) on the interferometer's sensitivity. It has long been thought that beating this SQL would require a radical redesign of interferometers. However, we show that LIGO-II interferometers, currently planned for 2006, can beat the SQL by as much as a factor two over a bandwidth Δf \sim f, if their thermal noise can be pushed low enough. This is due to dynamical correlations between photon shot noise and radiation-pressure noise, produced by the …
The interferometer is one of the most important devices for revealing the nature of light and for precision optical metrology. Though lots of experiments were performed for probing photons behaviors in various configurations, a complete study of photons behavior in a birefringent interferometer has not ever been performed. Based on an environmental turbulence immune Mach-Zehnder interferometer, tunable photonic beatings by rotating a birefringent crystal versus the temperature of the crystal for both single-photon and two-photon are observed. Furthermore, the two-photon interference fringes be…
The sensitivity in interferometric measurements such as gravitational-wave detectors is ultimately limited by quantum noise of light. We discuss the use of feedback mechanisms to reduce the quantum effects of radiation pressure. Recent experiments have shown that it is possible to reduce the thermal motion of a mirror by cold damping. The mirror motion is measured with an optomechanical sensor based on a high-finesse cavity, and reduced by a feedback loop. We show that this technique can be extended to lock the mirror at the quantum level. In gravitational-waves interferometers with Fabry-Pero…
The shot-noise limited peak sensitivity of cavity-enhanced interferometric measurement devices, such as gravitational-wave detectors, can be improved by increasing the cavity finesse, even when comparing fixed intra-cavity light powers. For a fixed light power inside the detector, this comes at the price of a proportional reduction in the detection bandwidth. High sensitivity over a large span of signal frequencies, however, is essential for astronomical observations. It is possible to overcome this standard sensitivity-bandwidth limit using non-classical correlations in the light field. Here,…
Precision measurement plays a crucial role in all fields of science. The use of entangled sensors in quantum metrology improves the precision limit from the standard quantum limit (SQL) to the Heisenberg limit (HL). To date, most experiments beating the SQL are performed on the sensors which are well isolated under extreme conditions. However, it has not been realized in solid-state spin systems at ambient conditions, owing to its intrinsic complexity for the preparation and survival of pure and entangled quantum states. Here we show a full interferometer sequence beating the SQL by employing …
We propose a two-photon beating experiment based upon biphotons generated from a resonant pumping two-level system operating in a backward geometry. On the one hand, the linear optical-response leads biphotons produced from two sidebands in the Mollow triplet to propagate with tunable refractive indices, while the central-component propagates with unity refractive index. The relative phase difference due to different refractive indices is analogous to the pathway-length difference between long-long and short-short in the original Franson interferometer. By subtracting the linear Rayleigh scatt…
With the help of quantum entanglement, quantum dense metrology (QDM) is a technique that can perform the joint estimates of two conjugate quantities such as phase and amplitude modulations of an optical field with an accuracy beating the standard quantum limit simultaneously. SU(1,1) interferometers (SUI) can realize QDM with detection loss tolerance but is limited in absolute sensitivity. Here we present a QDM scheme with a linear interferometer (SU(2)) nested inside an SU(1,1) interferometer. By using a degenerate SUI and controlling the phase angle of the phase-sensitive amplifers in SUI, w…
We present two-photon interference experiments with polarization-entangled photon pairs in a polarization-based Franson-type interferometer. Although the two photons do not meet at a common beamsplitter, a phase-insensitive Hong-Ou-Mandel type two-photon interference peak and dip fringes are observed, resulting from the two-photon interference effect between two indistinguishable two-photon probability amplitudes leading to a coincidence detection. A spatial quantum beating fringe is also measured for nondegenerate photon pairs in the same interferometer, although the two-photon states have no…
Boson sampling is considered as a strong candidate to demonstrate the quantum computational supremacy over classical computers. However, previous proof-of-principle experiments suffered from small photon number and low sampling rates owing to the inefficiencies of the single-photon sources and multi-port optical interferometers. Here, we develop two central components for high-performance boson sampling: robust multi-photon interferometers with 0.99 transmission rate, and actively demultiplexed single-photon sources from a quantum-dot-micropillar with simultaneously high efficiency, purity and…
We study the quantum limits in an optomechanical sensor based on a detuned high-finesse cavity with a movable mirror. We show that the radiation pressure exerted on the mirror by the light in the detuned cavity induces a modification of the mirror dynamics and makes the mirror motion sensitive to the signal. This leads to an amplification of the signal by the mirror dynamics, and to an improvement of the sensor sensitivity beyond the standard quantum limit, up to an ultimate quantum limit only related to the mechanical dissipation of the mirror. This improvement is somewhat similar to the one …
Quantum communication has historically been at the forefront of advancements, from fundamental tests of quantum physics to utilizing the quantum-mechanical properties of physical systems for practical applications. In the field of communication complexity, quantum communication allows the advantage of an exponential reduction in the information transmitted over classical communication to accomplish distributed computational tasks. However, to date, demonstrating this advantage in a practical setting continues to be a central challenge. Here, we report an experimental demonstration of a quantum…
We present a detailed study of the effects of imperfect atom-optical manipulation in Bragg-based light-pulse atom interferometers. Off-resonant higher-order diffraction leads to population loss, spurious interferometer paths, and diffraction phases. In a path-dependent formalism, we study numerically various effects and analyze the interference signal caused by an external phase or gravity. We compare first-order single and double Bragg diffraction in retroreflective setups. In double Bragg diffraction, phase imperfections lead to a beating due to three-path interference. Some effects of diffr…
Quantum measurements have been intensively researched over decades due to quantum advantage of Heisenberg limit beating the standard quantum limit toward potential applications of quantum metrology. The kernel of quantum measurements is in the quantum correlation between bipartite photon pairs or squeezed light quenched by one parameter over corresponding noncommuting variable satisfying Heisenberg uncertainty principle. As a result, quantum measurements bring a quantum gain of the square root law in measurement sensitivity. Photonic de Broglie waves (PBW) have been the key feature of such a g…
Quantum superdense coding protocols enhance channel capacity by using shared quantum entanglement between two users. The channel capacity can be as high as 2 when one uses entangled qubits. However, this limit can be surpassed by using high-dimensional entanglement. We report an experiment that exceeds the limit using high-quality entangled ququarts with fidelities up to 0.98, demonstrating a channel capacity of $2.09\pm0.01$. The measured channel capacity is also higher than that obtained when transmitting only one ququart. We use the setup to transmit a five-color image with a fidelity of 0.…
We experimentally demonstrate quantum enhanced resolution in confocal fluorescence microscopy exploiting the non-classical photon statistics of single nitrogen-vacancy colour centres in diamond. By developing a general model of super-resolution based on the direct sampling of the kth-order autocorrelation function of the photoluminescence signal, we show the possibility, in some cases, to resolve in principle arbitrarily close emitting centers.
Interferometry is a paradigm for most precision measurements. Using $N$ uncorrelated particles, the achievable precision for a two-mode (two-path) interferometer is bounded by the standard quantum limit (SQL), $1/\sqrt{N}$, due to the discrete (quanta) nature of individual measurements. Despite being a challenging benchmark, the two-mode SQL has been approached in a number of systems, including the LIGO and today's best atomic clocks. Employing multi-mode interferometry, the SQL becomes $1/[(M-1)\sqrt{N}]$ using M modes. Higher precision can also be achieved using entangled particles such that…
Dense coding is arguably the protocol that launched the field of quantum communication. Today, however, more than a decade after its initial experimental realization, the channel capacity remains fundamentally limited as conceived for photons using linear elements. Bob can only send to Alice three of four potential messages owing to the impossibility of carrying out the deterministic discrimination of all four Bell states with linear optics, reducing the attainable channel capacity from 2 to log_2 3 \approx 1.585 bits. However, entanglement in an extra degree of freedom enables the complete an…
Chirped-pulse interferometry (CPI) captures the metrological advantages of quantum Hong-Ou-Mandel (HOM) interferometry in a completely classical system. Modified HOM interferometers are the basis for a number of seminal quantum-interference effects. Here, the corresponding modifications to CPI allow for the first observation of classical analogues to the HOM peak and quantum beating. They also allow a new classical technique for generating phase super-resolution exhibiting a coherence length dramatically longer than that of the laser light, analogous to increased two-photon coherence lengths i…
With the help of quantum key distribution (QKD), two distant peers are able to share information-theoretically secure key bits. Increasing key rate is ultimately significant for the applications of QKD in lossy channel. However, it has proved that there is a fundamental rate-distance limit, named linear bound, which limits the performance of all existing repeaterless protocols and realizations. Surprisingly, a recently proposed protocol, called twin-field (TF) QKD can beat linear bound with no need of quantum repeaters. Here, we present the first implementation of TF-QKD protocol and demonstra…
The sensitivity properties of an SU(1,1) interferometer made of two cascaded parametric amplifiers, as well as of an ordinary SU(2) interferometer preceded by a squeezer and followed by an anti-squeezer, are theoretically investigated. Several possible experimental configurations are considered, such as the absence or presence of a seed beam, direct or homodyne detection scheme. In all cases we formulate the optimal conditions to achieve phase super-sensitivity, meaning a sensitivity overcoming the shot-noise limit. We show that for a given gain of the first parametric amplifier, unbalancing t…
Characterization and generation of a SQL-beating catlike state through repetitive measurements
Chuo university（中央大学）；Tokyo University of Science（东京理科大学）；RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute (PRI)（理化学研究所先锋研究本部）；RIKEN Center for Interdisciplinary Theoretical and Mathematical Sciences (iTHEMS)（理化学研究所跨学科理论与数学科学中心）；Institute for Photon Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo（东京大学光子科学技术研究院）；Center for Quantum Information and Quantum Biology, The University of Osaka（大阪大学量子信息与量子生物学中心）
Quantum number-path entanglement is a resource for super-sensitive quantum metrology and in particular provides for sub-shotnoise or even Heisenberg-limited sensitivity. However, such number-path entanglement has thought to have been resource intensive to create in the first place --- typically requiring either very strong nonlinearities, or nondeterministic preparation schemes with feed-forward, which are difficult to implement. Very recently, arising from the study of quantum random walks with multi-photon walkers, as well as the study of the computational complexity of passive linear optica…
In an unseeded SU(1,1) interferometer composed of two cascaded degenerate parametric amplifiers, with direct detection at the output, we demonstrate a phase sensitivity overcoming the shot noise limit by 2.3 dB. The interferometer is strongly unbalanced, with the parametric gain of the second amplifier exceeding the gain of the first one by a factor of 2, which makes the scheme extremely tolerant to detection losses. We show that by increasing the gain of the second amplifier, the phase supersensitivity of the interferometer can be preserved even with detection losses as high as 80%. This find…
Quantum entanglement is known as a unique feature of quantum mechanics, which cannot be obtained from classical physics. Recently, a coherence interpretation has been conducted for the delayed-choice quantum eraser using coherent photon pairs, where phase-locked symmetric frequency detuning between paired photons plays an essential role for selective measurement-caused nonlocal correlation. Here, a macroscopic version of the nonlocal correlation is presented using orthogonally polarized optical fields in a continuous wave quantum eraser scheme in a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI). The result…
We report the observation of phase-super resolution in a motion-sensitive spin-wave (SW) atom interferometer utilizing a NOON-type entanged state. The SW interferometer is implemented by generating a superposition of two SWs and observing the interference between them, where the interference fringe is sensitive to the atomic collective motion. By heralded generation of a second order NOON state in the SW interferometer, we clearly observe the interference pattern with phase super-resolution. The demonstrated SW interferometer can in principle be scaled up to highly entangled quantum state, and…
Phase insensitive optical amplification of an unknown quantum state is known to be a fundamentally noisy operation that inevitably adds noise to the amplified state [1 - 5]. However, this fundamental noise penalty in amplification can be circumvented by resorting to a probabilistic scheme as recently proposed and demonstrated in refs [6 - 8]. These amplifiers are based on highly non-classical resources in a complex interferometer. Here we demonstrate a probabilistic quantum amplifier beating the fundamental quantum limit utilizing a thermal noise source and a photon number subtraction scheme […
In this paper, we propose a protocol for angular displacement estimation based upon orbital angular momentum coherent state and a SU(1,1)-SU(2) hybrid interferometer. This interferometer consists of an optical parametric amplifier, a beam splitter and reflection mirrors, hereon we use a quantum detection strategy $\---$ balanced homodyne detection. The results indicate that super-resolution and super-sensitivity can be realized with ideal condition. Additionally, we study the impact of photon loss on the resolution and the sensitivity, and the robustness of our protocol is also discussed. Fina…
Super-resolved angular displacement estimation is of crucial significances for quantum information process and optical lithography. Here we report on and experimentally demonstrate a protocol for angular displacement estimation based on a coherent state containing orbital angular momentum. In the lossless scenario, with using parity measurement, this protocol can theoretically achieve 4$\ell$-fold super-resolution with quantum number $\ell$, and shot-noise-limited sensitivity saturating the quantum Cramér-Rao bound. Several realistic factors and their effects are considered, including nonideal…
Moiré patterns are produced when two periodic structures with different spatial frequencies are superposed. The transmission of the resulting structure gives rise to spatial beatings which are called moiré fringes. In classical optics, the interest in moiré fringes comes from the fact that the spatial beating given by the frequency difference gives information about details(high spatial frequency) of a given spatial structure. We show that moiré fringes can also arise in the spatial distribution of the coincidence count rate of twin photons from the parametric down-conversion, when spatial str…
We use a quantum variant of the Sagnac interferometer to argue for the quantum nature of gravity as well as to formulate a quantum version of the equivalence principle. We first present an original derivation of the phase acquired in the conventional Sagnac matter-wave interferometer, within the Hamiltonian formalism. Then we modify the interferometer in two crucial respects. The interfering matter wave is interfered along two different distances from the centre and the interferometer is prepared in a superposition of two different angular velocities. We argue that if the radial and angular de…
With photon-number resolving detectors, we show compression of interference fringes with increasing photon numbers for a Fabry-Perot interferometer. This feature provides a higher precision in determining the position of the interference maxima compared to a classical detection strategy. We also theoretically show supersensitivity if N-photon states are sent into the interferometer and a photon-number resolving measurement is performed.
The quantum superposition principle implies that a particle entering an interferometer evolves by simultaneously taking both arms. If a non-destructive, minimally-disturbing interaction coupling a particle property to a pointer is implemented on each arm while maintaining the path superposition, quantum theory predicts that, for a fixed state measured at the output port, certain particle properties can be associated with only one or the other path. Here we report realization of this prediction through joint observation of the spatial and polarization degrees of freedom of a single photon in th…
SU(1,1) interferometers, based on the usage of nonlinear elements, are superior to passive interferometers in phase sensitivity. However, the SU(1,1) interferometer cannot make full use of photons carrying phase information as the second nonlinear element annihilates some of the photons inside. Here, we focus on improving phase sensitivity and propose a new protocol based on a modified SU(1,1) interferometer, where the second nonlinear element is replaced by a beam splitter. We utilize two coherent states as inputs and implement balanced homodyne measurement at the output. Our analysis suggest…
We propose a protected qubit based on a modular array of superconducting islands connected by semiconductor Josephson interferometers. The individual interferometers realize effective $\cos2ϕ$ elements that exchange `pairs of Cooper pairs' between the superconducting islands when gate-tuned into balance and frustrated by a half flux quantum. If a large capacitor shunts the ends of the array, the circuit forms a protected qubit because its degenerate ground states are robust to offset charge and magnetic field fluctuations for a sizable window around zero offset charge and half flux quantum. Th…
The second-order spatial and temporal interference patterns with two independent single-mode He-Ne lasers are observed in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer. Two-photon interference in Feynman's path integral theory is employed to interpret the experimental results. The conditions to observe the second-order interference pattern with two independent single-mode continuous wave lasers are discussed. It is concluded that two-photon interference exists for not only identical photons, but also photons with different spectrums if the detection system can not distinguish them in principle. The second-o…
Nonlinear interferometers with correlated photons hold a promise to advance optical characterization and metrology techniques by improving their performance and affordability. Nonlinear interferometers offer the sub-shot noise phase sensitivity and enable measurements in detection-challenging regions using inexpensive and efficient components. The sensitivity of such interferometers, defined by the ability to measure small shifts of interference fringes, can be significantly enhanced by using multiple nonlinear elements, or crystal superlattices. However, to date, the experiments with no more …
Probing quantum mechanics, quantum aspects of general relativity along with the sensing and the constraining of classical gravity can all be enabled by unprecedented spatial sizes of superpositions of massive objects. In this paper, we show that there is a feasible setup sourced by realizable magnetic field gradients ${\cal O}(10-100)$ Tm$^{-1}$ to construct a large spatial superposition of ${\cal O}(10^{-4}-10^{-8})$ m for masses ${\cal O}(10^{-16}-10^{-14})$ kg over a time period of up to $0.1-10$ seconds.
A new type of quantum entangled interferometer was recently realized that employs parametric amplifiers as the wave splitting and recombination elements. The quantum entanglement stems from the parametric amplifiers, which produce quantum correlated fields for probing the phase change signal in the interferometer. This type of quantum entangled interferometer exhibits some unique properties that are different from traditional beam splitter-based interferometers such as Mach-Zehnder interferometers. Because of these properties, it is superior to the traditional interferometers in many aspects, …
Two-photon superbunching of pseudothermal light is observed with single-mode continuous-wave laser light in a linear optical system. By adding more two-photon paths via three rotating ground glasses,g(2)(0) = 7.10 is experimentally observed. The second-order temporal coherence function of superbunching pseudothermal light is theoretically and experimentally studied in detail. It is predicted that the degree of coherence of light can be increased dramatically by adding more multi-photon paths. For instance, the degree of the second- and third-order coherence of the superbunching pseudothermal l…
It is challenging for observing superbunching effect with true chaotic light, here we propose and demonstrate a method to achieve superbunching effect of the degree of second-order coherence is 2.42 with broadband stationary chaotic light based on a cascaded Michelson interferometer (CMI), exceeding the theoretical upper limit of 2 for the two-photon bunching effect of chaotic light. The superbunching correlation peak is measured with an ultrafast two-photon absorption detector which the full width at half maximum reaches about 95 fs. Two-photon superbunching theory in a CMI is developed to in…
The quantum states of flux qubit is suggested to observe with the help of a new device, the superconducting differential double contour interferometer (DDCI). The flux qubit and the superconducting quantum interference device (DC-SQUID) are connected in the DDCI through the phase of the wave function rather than through magnetic flux. The critical current of DC-SQUID should change to the maximum value at the change of the flux qubit state thanks to this phase coupling. A large jump in the critical current and voltage enables to observe continuously the change in time the state of the flux qubi…
Any imaging device such as a microscope or telescope has a resolution limit, a minimum separation it can resolve between two objects or sources; this limit is typically defined by "Rayleigh's criterion", although in recent years there have been a number of high-profile techniques demonstrating that Rayleigh's limit can be surpassed under particular sets of conditions. Quantum information and quantum metrology have given us new ways to approach measurement ; a new proposal inspired by these ideas has now re-examined the problem of trying to estimate the separation between two poorly resolved po…
We propose a novel scheme to achieve two-photon super bunching of thermal light through multiple two-photon-path interference, in which two mutually first-order incoherent optical channels are introduced by inserting a modified Michelson interferometer into a traditional two-photon HBT interferometer, and the bunching peak-to-background ratio can reach 3 theoretically. Experimentally, the super bunching peak-to-background ratio was measured to be 2.4, much larger than the ratio 1.7 measured with the same thermal source in a traditional HBT interferometer. The peak-to-background ratio of two-ph…
Multimode integrated interferometers have great potential for both spectral engineering and metrological applications. However, material dispersion of integrated platforms constitutes an obstacle which limits the performance and precision of such interferometers. At the same time, two-colour non-linear interferometers present an important tool for metrological applications, when measurements in a certain frequency range are difficult. In this manuscript, we theoretically develop and investigate an integrated multimode two-colour SU(1,1) interferometer that operates in a supersensitive mode. By…
We analyse a proposal that we have recently put forward for an interface between matter-wave and optomechanical technologies from the perspective of macroscopic quantumness. In particular, by making use of a measure of macroscopicity in quantum superpositions that is particularly well suited for continuous variables systems, we demonstrate the existence of working points for our interface at which a quantum mechanical superposition of genuinely mesoscopic states is achieved. Our proposal thus holds the potential to affirm itself as a viable atom-to-mechanics transducer of quantum coherences.
