We experimentally demonstrate a source of polarization entangled photon-pairs based on a single periodically-poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) crystal pumped with a broadband, free running laser diode.The crystal is placed within a linear beam-displacement interferometer, and emits photon-pairs based ontype-0 spontaneous parametric downconversion (SPDC). We observe pair rates of 0.56 Mpairs/s/mW in a single spatial mode with a polarization visibility of 97.7% over a spectral range of 100 nm. This experiment demonstrates a pathway towards observing Gigacount rates of polarization entangled photon pairs by using high-power free-running laser diodes with fast multiplexed detectors.
We experimentally demonstrate a polarization-entangled photon source at 810 nm using a type-II phase-matched PPKTP crystal pumped by a low-cost, broadband laser diode with a central wavelength of 405 nm and a typical bandwidth of 0.53 nm. The PPKTP crystal is placed in a Sagnac-loop to realize the compact size and high stability. The downconverted biphotons, the signal and the idler, have typical bandwidths of 5.57 nm and 7.32 nm. We prepare two Bell states |Psi+> and |Psi-> with the fidelities of 0.948+-0.004 and 0.963+-0.002. In polarization correlation measurement, the visibilities are all …
In this letter, we report a compact, low-power laser diode-pumped, all-fiber polarization-entangled photon pair source based on periodically-poled silica fiber technology. The all-fiber source offers room-temperature, alignment-free, turn-key operation, with low power consumption, and is packaged into a fanless, portable enclosure. It features a broad biphoton spectrum of more than 100nm with a concurrence that is greater than 0.96 for polarization entanglement. The source is stable over at least 10 hours of continuous operation, achieving coincidence-to-accidental ratios of more than 2000 con…
Twin-Signal-Recycling (TSR) builds on the resonance doublet of two optically coupled cavities and efficiently enhances the sensitivity of an interferometer at a dedicated signal frequency. We report on the first experimental realization of a Twin-Signal-Recycling Michelson interferometer and also its broadband enhancement by squeezed light injection. The complete setup was stably locked and a broadband quantum noise reduction of the interferometers shot noise by a factor of up to 4\,dB was demonstrated. The system was characterized by measuring its quantum noise spectra for several tunings of …
In this paper, we study two-photon interference of broadband chaotic light in a Michelson interferometer with two-photon-absorption detector. The theoretical analysis is based on two-photon interference and Feynman path integral theory. The two-photon coherence matrix is introduced to calculate the second-order interference pattern with polarizations being taken into account. Our study shows that the polarization is another dimension, as well as time and space, to tune the interference pattern in the two-photon interference process. It can act as a switch to manipulate the interference process…
Broadband quantum noise reduction can be achieved in gravitational wave detectors by injecting frequency dependent squeezed light into the the dark port of the interferometer. This frequency dependent squeezing can be generated by combining squeezed light with external filter cavities. However, in future long baseline interferometers (LBIs), the filter cavity required to achieve the broadband squeezing has a low bandwidth -- necessitating a very long cavity to mitigate the issue from optical loss. It has been shown recently that by taking advantage of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen (EPR) entanglement…
We demonstrate the applicability of the EPR entanglement squeezing scheme for enhancing the shot-noise-limited sensitivity of a detuned dual-recycled Michelson interferometers. In particular, this scheme is applied to the GEO\,600 interferometer. The effect of losses throughout the interferometer, arm length asymmetries, and imperfect separation of the signal and idler beams are considered.
Quantum microwave photonics aims at generating, routing, and manipulating propagating quantum microwave fields in the spirit of optical photonics. To this end, the strong nonlinearities of superconducting quantum circuits can be used to either improve or move beyond the implementation of concepts from the optical domain. In this context, the design of a well-controlled broadband environment for the superconducting quantum circuits is a central task. In this work, we place a superconducting transmon qubit in one arm of an on-chip Mach-Zehnder interferometer composed of two superconducting micro…
Using a traveling-wave OPA with two orthogonally oriented type-I BBO crystals pumped by picosecond pulses, we generate vertically and horizontally polarized squeezed vacuum states within a broad range of wavelengths and angles. Depending on the phase between these states, fluctuations in one or another Stokes parameters are suppressed below the shot-noise limit. Due to the large number of photon pairs produced, no local oscillator is required, and 3dB squeezing is observed by means of direct detection.
Broadband suppression of quantum noise below the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) becomes a top-priority problem for the future generation of large-scale terrestrial detectors of gravitational waves, as the interferometers of the Advanced LIGO project, predesigned to be quantum-noise-limited in the almost entire detection band, are phased in. To this end, among various proposed methods of quantum noise suppression or signal amplification, the most elaborate approach implies a so-called *xylophone* configuration of two Michelson interferometers, each optimised for its own frequency band, with a com…
We describe an all-fiber nonlinear interferometer based on four-wave mixing in highly nonlinear fiber. Our configuration realizes phase-sensitive interference with 97% peak visibility and >90% visibility over a broad 554 GHz optical band. By comparing the output noise power to the shot-noise level, we confirm noise cancellation at dark interference fringes, as required for quantum-enhanced sensitivity. Our device extends nonlinear interferometry to the important platform of highly nonlinear optical fiber, and could find application in a variety of fiber-based sensors.
Interferometers enable ultrasensitive measurement in a wide array of applications from gravitational wave searches to force microscopes. The role of quantum mechanics in the metrological limits of interferometers has a rich history, and a large number of techniques to surpass conventional limits have been proposed. In a typical measurement configuration, the tradeoff between the probe's shot noise (imprecision) and its quantum backaction results in what is known as the standard quantum limit (SQL). In this work we investigate how quantum correlations accessed by modifying the readout of the in…
Differing from the traditional method of achieving subwavelength interference, we have demonstrated the two-photon subwavelength interference effect of broadband chaotic light in a polarization-selective Michelson interferometer with an ultrafast two-photon absorption detector the first time, which is achieved by manipulating two-photon probability amplitudes involved in the interference. In theory, the two-photon polarization coherence matrix and probability amplitudes matrix are combined to develop polarized two-photon interference terms, which explains the experimental results well. In orde…
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…
We demonstrate a two phase-grating, multi-beam neutron interferometer by using a modified Ronchi setup in a far-field regime. The functionality of the interferometer is based on the universal \moire effect that was recently implemented for X-ray phase-contrast imaging in the far-field regime. Interference fringes were achieved with monochromatic, bichromatic, and polychromatic neutron beams; for both continuous and pulsed beams. This far-field neutron interferometry allows for the utilization of the full neutron flux for precise measurements of potential gradients, and expands neutron phase-co…
A quantum-eraser experiment is reported with photon pairs generated by two synchronously pumped parametric down converters coupled via induced coherence. The complementarity between which-source information and two-photon interference fringe visibility has been investigated by two coupled interferometers.
Using the quantum interference of photon pairs in N-stage nonlinear interferometers (NLI), the contour of joint spectral function can be modified into islands pattern. We perform two series of experiments. One is that all the nonlinear fibers in pulse pumped NLI are identical; the other is that the lengths of N pieces nonlinear fibers are different. We not only demonstrate how the pattern of spectral function changes with the stage number N, but also characterize how the relative intensity of island peaks varies with N. The results, well agree with theoretical predictions in Ref. [1], reveal t…
For the first time, the theory and practical realization of a broadband quantum noise generator based on original integrated optical beam splitter in the form of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer is demonstrated. The beam splitter with a double output, made on a lithium niobate substrate, provided accurate electro-optical balancing of the homodyne quantum noise detection circuit. According to our knowledge, the experimentally obtained excess of quantum noise over classical noise by 12 dB in the frequency band over 4 GHz, which is the best parameters of quantum noise generators known from the liter…
We theoretically investigate the quantum interference of entangled two-photon states generated in a nonlinear crystal pumped by femtosecond optical pulses. Interference patterns generated by the polarization analog of the Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer are studied. Attention is devoted to the effects of the pump-pulse profile (pulse duration and chirp) and the second-order dispersion in both the nonlinear crystal and the interferometer's optical elements. Dispersion causes the interference pattern to have an asymmetric shape. Dispersion cancellation occurs in some cases.
In order to expand the astrophysical reach of gravitational wave detectors, several interferometer topologies have been proposed to evade the thermodynamic and quantum mechanical limits in future detectors. In this work, we make a systematic comparison among them by considering their sensitivities and complexities. We numerically optimize their sensitivities by introducing a cost function that tries to maximize the broadband improvement over the sensitivity of current detectors. We find that frequency-dependent squeezed-light injection with a hundred-meter scale filter cavity yields a good bro…
We report on the demonstration of broadband squeezed laser beams that show a frequency dependent orientation of the squeezing ellipse. Carrier frequency as well as quadrature angle were stably locked to a reference laser beam at 1064nm. This frequency dependent squeezing was characterized in terms of noise power spectra and contour plots of Wigner functions. The later were measured by quantum state tomography. Our tomograph allowed a stable lock to a local oscillator beam for arbitrary quadrature angles with one degree precision. Frequency dependent orientations of the squeezing ellipse are ne…
A combined ferrite parametric amplifier and millimeter-wave homodyne interferometer are proposed as an ambient temperature Bell Test. It is shown that the non-linear magnetic susceptibility of the yttrium iron garnet (YIG) ferrite, on account of its narrow line-width Larmor precessional resonance, make it an ideal material for the creation of entangled photons. These can be measured using a homodyne interferometer, as the much larger number of thermally generated photons associated with ambient temperature emission can be screened out. The proposed architecture may enable YIG quantum technolog…
We present a fiber-based source of polarization-entangled photon pairs that is well suited for quantum communication applications in the 1.5$μ$m band of standard telecommunication fiber. Quantum-correlated signal and idler photon pairs are produced when a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer is pumped in the anomalous-dispersion region of the fiber. Recently, we have demonstrated nonclassical properties of such photon pairs by using Geiger-mode InGaAs/InP avalanche photodiodes. Polarization entanglement in the photon pairs can be created by pumping the Sagnac interferometer with two orthogona…
A nonlinear planar waveguide pumped by a beam orthogonal to its surface may serve as a versatile source of photon pairs. Changing pump-pulse duration, pump-beam transverse width, and angular decomposition of pump-beam frequencies characteristics of a photon pair including spectral widths of signal and idler fields, their time durations as well as degree of entanglement of two fields can be changed significantly. Using the measured spectral widths of the down-converted fields and width of a coincidence-count dip in a Hong-Ou-Mandel interferometer entropy of entanglement can be determined.
We propose a compact high-intensity room-temperature source of entangled photons based on the efficient second-order process of two-photon spontaneous emission from electrically-pumped semiconductor quantum wells in a photonic microcavity. Two-photon emission rate in room-temperature semiconductor devices is determined solely by the carrier density, regardless of the residual one-photon emission. The microcavity selects two-photon emission for a specific signal and idler wavelengths and at a preferred direction without modifying the overall rate. Pair-generation rate in GaAs/AlGaAs quantum wel…
We observe at record-high speed the nonclassical nature of ultra-broadband bi-photons, reducing the measurement time by four orders of magnitude compared to standard techniques of Hong-Ou-Mandel interference or sum-frequency generation. We measure the quantum state of the broadband bi-photons, amplitude and phase, with a pairwise "Mach-Zehnder" quantum interferometer, where bi-photons that are generated in one nonlinear crystal are enhanced (constructive interference) or diminished (destructive interference) in another crystal, depending on the bi-photon phase. We verify the quantum nature of …
