We designed and implemented a novel combination of a Sagnac-interferometer with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer for a source of polarization-entangled photons. The new versatile configuration does not require multi-wavelength polarization optics, yet it performs with a good polarization quality and phase-stability over a wide wavelength range. We demonstrate the interferometer using only standard commercial optics to experimentally realize the pulsed generation of polarization-entangled photon-pairs at wavelengths of 764nm and 1221nm via type-I spontaneous four-wave mixing in a polarization-maintaining fiber. Polarization entanglement was verified by a polarization-correlation measurement with a visibility of 95.5% from raw coincidence counts and the violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (CHSH) inequality with $S=2.70\pm0.04$. The long-term phase-stability was characterized by an Allan deviation of 8$^\circ$ over an integration time of about 1 hour with no active phase-stabilization.
We demonstrate a simple, robust, and ultrabright parametric down-conversion source of polarization-entangled photons based on a polarization Sagnac interferometer. Bidirectional pumping in type-II phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO4 yields a measured flux of 5 000 polarization-entangled pairs/s per mW of pump power in a 1-nm bandwidth at 96.8% quantum-interference visibility. The common-path arrangement of the Sagnac interferometer eliminates the need for phase stabilization for the biphoton output state.
SU(1,1) interferometer (SUI) is a novel type of interferometer that uses directly entangled quantum fields for sensing phase change. For rotational sensing, Sagnac geometry is usually adopted. However, because SUI depends on the phase sum of the two arms, traditional Sagnac geometry, when applied to SUI, will result in null signal. In this paper, we modify the traditional Sagnac interferometer by nesting SU(1,1) interferometers inside. We show that the rotational signal comes from two parts labeled as "classical" and "quantum", respectively, and the quantum part, where quantum entangled fields…
High-fidelity polarization-entangled photons are a powerful resource for quantum communication, distributing entanglement and quantum teleportation. The Bell-CHSH inequality $S\leq2$ is violated by bipartite entanglement and only maximally entangled states can achieve $S=2\sqrt{2}$, the Tsirelson bound. Spontaneous parametric down-conversion sources can produce entangled photons with correlations close to the Tsirelson bound. Sagnac configurations offer intrinsic stability, compact footprint and high collection efficiency, however, there is often a trade off between source brightness and entan…
We demonstrate pulsed polarization-entangled photons generated from a periodically poled $\mathrm{KTiOPO_4}$ (PPKTP) crystal in a Sagnac interferometer configuration at telecom wavelength. Since the group-velocity-matching (GVM) condition is satisfied, the intrinsic spectral purity of the photons is much higher than in the previous scheme at around 800 nm wavelength. The combination of a Sagnac interferometer and the GVM-PPKTP crystal makes our entangled source compact, stable, highly entangled, spectrally pure and ultra-bright. The photons were detected by two superconducting nanowire single …
Sources of entangled photon pairs are a key component in both fundamental tests of quantum theory and practical applications such as quantum key distribution and quantum computing. In this work, we describe and characterize a source of polarization entangled photon pairs based on two spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) crystals in a Sagnac interferometer. Our source is compact and produces high-quality entangled states in a very flexible manner. The wavelengths of the photon pairs, around 810 and 1550 nm, the phase between orthogonal components of the entangled state, and the tangle …
We report a source of polarization-entangled photon pairs in the 1550-nm telecommunication band, which is based on non-collinear spontaneous parametric down-conversion in a periodically poled lithium niobate crystal pumped by picosecond pulses. This source is realized utilizing a polarization-based Sagnac interferometer employing a type-0 non-collinear quasi-phase-matching configuration. Polarization entanglement is verified through measurement of the polarization-correlation interference fringes with visibility >96% and by testing the experimental violation of the Clauser-Horne-Shimony-Holt (…
We demonstrate a compact and stable source of polarization-entangled pairs of photons, one at 810 nm wavelength for high detection efficiency and the other at 1550 nm for long-distance fiber communication networks. Due to a novel Sagnac-based design of the interferometer no active stabilization is needed. Using only one 30 mm ppKTP bulk crystal the source produces photons with a spectral brightness of 1.13x10^6 pairs/s/mW/THz with an entanglement fidelity of 98.2%. Both photons are single-mode fiber coupled and ready to be used in quantum key distribution (QKD) or transmission of photonic quan…
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 …
We demonstrate pulsed operation of a bidirectionally pumped polarization Sagnac interferometric down-conversion source and its generation of narrowband, high-visibility polarization-entangled photons. Driven by a narrowband, mode-locked pump at 390.35 nm, the phase-stable Sagnac source with a type-II phase-matched periodically poled KTiOPO$_4$ crystal is capable of producing 0.01 entangled pair per pulse in a 0.15-nm bandwidth centered at 780.7 nm with 1 mW of average pump power at a repetition rate of 31.1 MHz. We have achieved a mean photon-pair generation rate of as high as 0.7 pair per pul…
The Sagnac interferometry has been widely used to measure rotation frequency. Beyond the conventional single-particle Sagnac interferometry, we propose an atomic Sagnac interferometry via multi-particle entangled states. In our scheme, an ensemble of entangled two-state Bose atoms are moved in a ring by a state-dependent rotating potential and then are recombined for interference via Ramsey pulses after a specific time determined by the state-dependent rotating potential. The ultimate rotation sensitivity can be improved to the Heisenberg limit if the initial internal degrees of freedom are en…
We develop a Sagnac-type source of ultrabright, non-degenerate, polarization-entangled photon pair that is highly stable and compact simultaneously. We use a $20~\text{mm}$ long PPLN bulk crystal which, upon pumping continuously with $532~\text{nm}$ wavelength, produces polarization-entangled photon-pairs of $785~\text{nm}$ signal and $1651~\text{nm}$ idler wavelengths via the type-0 spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) process. All optical components used in the setup are off-the-shelf components, readily available commercially; hence, no custom-designed or costly multi-wavelength po…
We show how the entangled photons produced in parametric down conversion can be used to improve the sensitivity of a Sagnac interferometer. Two-photon and four-photon coincidences increases the sensitivity by a factor of two and four respectively. Our results apply to sources with arbitrary pumping and squeezing parameters.
We investigate quantum sensing of rotation with a multi-atom Sagnac interferometer and present multi-partite entangled states to enhance the sensitivity of rotation frequency. For studying the sensitivity, we first present a Hermitian generator with respect to the rotation frequency. The generator, which contains the Sagnac phase, is a linear superposition of a z component of the collective spin and a quadrature operator of collective bosons depicting the trapping modes, which enables us to conveniently study the quantum Fisher information (QFI) for any initial states. With the generator, we d…
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…
Optical rigidity in aLIGO gravitational-wave detector, operated on dark port regime, is unstable. We show that the same interferometer with excluded symmetric mechanical mode but with unbalanced arms allows to get stable optical spring for antisymmetric mechanical mode. Arm detuning necessary to get stability is shown to be a small one - it corresponds to small power in signal port. We show that stable optical spring may be also obtained in Michelson-Sagnac interferometer with both power and signal recycling mirrors and unbalanced arms.
Recently, our group has demonstrated an ultrafast, low-loss, fiber-loop switch based on a nonlinear Sagnac-interferometer design, using which entangled photons were shown to be routed without any measurable degradation in their entanglement fidelity [Hall {\it et al.}, Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 106}, 053901 (2011)]. Such a device represents an enabling technology for a rich variety of networked quantum applications. In this paper we develop a comprehensive quantum theory for such switches in general, i.e., those based on nonlinear Sagnac interferometers, where the in-coupling of quantum noise is c…
A bulk-optics, polarization-independent phase shifter for photonic quantum information applications is demonstrated. A transverse mode electro-optic modulator using lithium niobate is placed in a Sagnac-like loop containing Faraday rotators. This direction-dependent polarization rotation in the loop is combined with a Mach-Zehnder interferometer to form an optical switch with an on/off contrast of 96% and a switching time of 1.6 ns.
We have experimentally created a robust, ultrabright and phase-stable polarization-entangled state close to maximally entangled Bell-state with $ \% 98 $-fidelity using the type-II spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) process in periodically-poled KTiOPO$ _4 $ (PPKTP) collinear crystal inside a Sagnac interferometer (SI). Bell inequality measurement, Freedman's test, as the different versions of CHSH inequality, and also visibility test which all can be seen as the nonlocal realism tests, imply that our created entangled state shows a strong violation from the classical physics or any…
We present the first experimental demonstration of the optical Sagnac effect at the single-photon level. Using a high quality guided-wave heralded single- photon source at 1550 nm and a fibre optics setup, we obtain an interference pattern with net visibilities up to (99.2 $\pm$ 0.4%). On the basis of this high visibility and the compactness of the setup, the interest of such a system for fibre optics gyroscope is discussed.
We explored the general characteristics of a Sagnac interferometer in a multiparameter estimation process. We find that in the two-parameter estimation scenario, one cannot make both parameter measurement results reach the Heisenberg limit (HL) simultaneously when the input resources are maximally entangled. Only one of the parameters' uncertainty can approach the HL while the other is only scaled by the standard quantum limit (SQL). We also discussed the constraint conditions that make the quantum Cramer-Rao bound saturable. These constraint conditions would prompt one to choose proper evolut…
We study the amplification of rotation velocity with the Sagnac interferometer based on the concept of weak-value amplification. By using a different scheme to perform the Sagnac interferometer with the probe in momentum space, we have demonstrated the new weak measure protocol to detect the small rotation velocity by amplifying the phase shift of the Sagnac effect. At the given the maximum incident intensity of the initial spectrum, the detection limit of the intensity of the spectrometer and the accuracy of angular velocity measurement, we can theoretical give the appropriate potselection an…
We put forward a new fiber optic sensor for measuring linear velocity with picometer/second sensitivity with Weak-value amplification based on generalized Sagnac effect [Phys. Rev. Lett.\textbf{93}, 143901(2004)].The generalized Sagnac effect was first introduced by Yao et al, which included the Sagnac effect of rotation as a special case and suggested a new fiber optic sensor for measuring linear motion with nanoscale sensitivity. By using a different scheme to perform the Sagnac interferometer with the probe in momentum space, we have demonstrated the new weak measure protocol to detect the …
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 random number generators (QRNG) are based on the naturally random measurement results performed on individual quantum systems. Here, we demonstrate a branching-path photonic QRNG implemented with a Sagnac interferometer with a tunable splitting ratio. The fine-tuning of the splitting ratio allows us to maximize the entropy of the generated sequence of random numbers and effectively compensate for tolerances in the components. By producing single-photons from attenuated telecom laser pulses, and employing commercially-available components we are able to generate a sequence of more than …
An essential component of future quantum networks is an optical switch capable of dynamically routing single-photons. Here we implement such a switch, based on a fiber-optical Sagnac interferometer design. The routing is implemented with a pair of fast electro-optical telecom phase modulators placed inside the Sagnac loop, such that each modulator acts on an orthogonal polarization component of the single-photons, in order to yield polarization-independent capability that is crucial for several applications. We obtain an average extinction ratio of more than 19 dB between both outputs of the s…
The advantages of light and matter-wave Sagnac interferometers -- large area on one hand and high rotational sensitivity per unit area on the other -- can be combined utilizing ultra-slow light in cold atomic gases. While a group-velocity reduction alone does not affect the Sagnac phase shift, the associated momentum transfer from light to atoms generates a coherent matter-wave component which gives rise to a substantially enhanced rotational signal. It is shown that matter-wave sensitivity in a large-area interferometer can be achieved if an optically dense vapor at sub-recoil temperatures is…
The interferometry of single-photon pulses has been used to implement quantum technology systems, like quantum key distribution, interaction-free measurement and some other quantum communication protocols. In most of these implementations, Mach-Zehnder, Michelson and Fabry-Perot interferometers are the most used. In this work we present optical setups for interaction-free measurement, quantum key distribution and quantum secret sharing using the Sagnac interferometer. The proposed setups are described as well the quantum protocols using them are explained.
We describe a weak value inspired phase amplification technique in a Sagnac interferometer. We monitor the relative phase between two paths of a slightly misaligned interferometer by measuring the average position of a split-Gaussian mode in the dark port. Although we monitor only the dark port, we show that the signal varies linearly with phase and that we can obtain similar sensitivity to balanced homodyne detection. We derive the source of the amplification both with classical wave optics and as an inverse weak value.
We demonstrate a polarization-entangled photon-pair source obtained via a type-II non-collinear quasi-phase-matched spontaneous parametric down-conversion process with a 10-mm periodically poled KTiOPO$_4$ crystal, which is as stable and wavelength-tunable as the well-known Sagnac configuration scheme. A brightness of 4.2 kHz/mW is detected and a concurrence of 0.975 is estimated using quantum state tomography. Without loss of entanglement and brightness, the photon-pair wavelengths are tunable through control of the crystal temperature. This improvement is achieved using the non-collinear con…
Recently, biased weak measurement(BWM) has shown higher precision than both conventional measurement and standard weak measurement(SWM) in optical metrology. In this paper, we propose a scheme of detecting rotation velocity in Sagnac's interferometer with BWM. In particular, BWM employs an additional reduction of photons in the post-selection by introducing a pre-coupling, and the remaining photons have been shown to be extremely sensitive to the estimated parameter. In addition, our numerical results show that the scheme with BWM can obtain a higher sensitivity than the scheme with SWM.
We generated time-multiplexed degenerate optical parametric oscillator (DOPO) pulses using a nonlinear fiber Sagnac loop as a phase-sensitive amplifier (PSA) where the pump and amplified light in pump-signal-idler degenerate four-wave mixing can be spatially separated. By placing the PSA in a fiber cavity, we successfully generated more than 5,000 time-multiplexed DOPO pulses. We confirmed the bifurcation of pulse phases to 0 or $π$ relative to the pump phase, which makes them useful for representing Ising spins in an Ising model solver based on coherent optical oscillator networks. We also co…
We report on a study of the long-term stability and absolute accuracy of an atom interferometer gyroscope. This study included the implementation of an electro-optical technique to reverse the vector area of the interferometer for reduced systematics and a careful study of systematic phase shifts. Our data strongly suggests that drifts less than 96 $μ$deg/hr are possible after empirically removing shifts due to measured changes in temperature, laser intensity, and several other experimental parameters.
Only a few years ago, it was realized that the zero-area Sagnac interferometer topology is able to perform quantum nondemolition measurements of position changes of a mechanical oscillator. Here, we experimentally show that such an interferometer can also be efficiently enhanced by squeezed light. We achieved a nonclassical sensitivity improvement of up to 8.2 dB, limited by optical loss inside our interferometer. Measurements performed directly on our squeezed-light laser output revealed squeezing of 12.7 dB. We show that the sensitivity of a squeezed-light enhanced Sagnac interferometer can …
The non-reciprocity of Sagnac interferometer provides ultra-high sensitivity for parameter estimation and offers a wide range of applications, especially for optical fiber sensing. In this work, we study a new type of non-reciprocity existed in optical fiber Sagnac interferometer where the polarization dependent loss is taken into consideration. In particular, this non-reciprocity is irrelevant to the physical effects that being considered in previous studies, which originates from the geometric phases induced by continuous-weak-measurement. In consequence, it has a unique phenomenon of sudden…
We present a design for a quantum key distribution(QKD) system in a Sagnac loop configuration, employing a novel phase modulation scheme based on frequency shift, and demonstrate stable BB84 QKD operation with high interference visibility and low quantum bit error rate (QBER). The phase modulation is achieved by sending two light pulses with a fixed time delay (or a fixed optical path delay) through a frequency shift element and by modulating the amount of frequency shift. The relative phase between two light pulses upon leaving the frequency-shift element is determined by both the time delay …
A frequency-multiplexed entangled photon pair and a high-dimensional hyperentangled photon pair are useful to realize a high-capacity quantum communication. A biphoton frequency comb (BFC) with entanglement can be used to prepare both states. We demonstrate polarization entangled BFCs with over 1400 frequency modes, which is approximately two orders of magnitude larger than those of earlier entangled BFCs, by placing a singly resonant periodically poled LiNbO3 waveguide resonator within a Sagnac loop. The BFCs are demonstrated by measuring the joint spectral intensity, cross-correlation, and a…
We demonstrate a fiber-based source of polarization-entangled photon pairs at visible wavelengths suitable for integration with local quantum processing schemes. The photons are created through birefringent phase-matching in spontaneous four-wave mixing inside a Sagnac interferometer. We address entanglement degradation due to temporal distinguishability of the photons to enable the generation of a spectrally unfiltered polarization-entangled photon-pair state with $95.86\pm0.10%$ fidelity to a maximally entangled Bell state, evaluated with a tomographic state reconstruction without applying a…
We propose and experimentally demonstrate a single-mode fiber length and dispersion measurement system based on a novel frequency-shifted asymmetric Sagnac interferometer incorporating an acousto-optic modulator (AOM). By sweeping the driving frequency of the AOM, which is asymmetrically placed in the Sagnac loop, the optical length of the fiber can be determined by measuring the corresponding variation in the phase delay between the two counter-propagating light beams. Combined with a high-resolution data processing algorithm, this system yields a dynamic range from a few centimeters to 60km …
Integrated photonics is becoming an ideal platform for generating two-photon entangled states with high brightness, high stability and scalability. This high brightness and high quality of photon pair sources encourages researchers further to study and manipulate multi-photon entangled states. Here, we experimentally demonstrate frequency-degenerate four-photon entangled state generation based on a single silicon nanowire 1 cm in length. The polarization encoded entangled states are generated with the help of a Sagnac loop using additional optical elements. The states are analyzed using quantu…
Entanglement is a universal resource in quantum networks, yet entangled photon sources are typically custom-made for a specific use case. Versatility, both in terms of state modulation and tunability of the temporal properties of the photons, is the key to flexible network architectures and cryptographic primitives that go beyond quantum key distribution. Here, we report on a flexible source design that produces high-quality entanglement in continuous-wave and GHz-rate-pulsed operation modes. Utilizing off-the-shelf optical components, our approach uses a fiber-based Sagnac loop to generate po…
We demonstrate a wavelength-tunable, fiber-coupled source of polarization-entangled photons with extremely high spectral brightness and quality of entanglement. Using a 25 mm PPKTP crystal inside a polarization Sagnac interferometer we detect a spectral brightness of 273000 pairs/(s mW nm), a factor of 28 better than comparable previous sources while state tomography showed the two-photon state to have a tangle of T=0.987. This improvement was achieved by use of a long crystal, careful selection of focusing parameters and single-mode fiber coupling. We demonstrate that, due to the particular g…
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 counter-propagating 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 producti…
Fiber optic gyroscopes (FOG) based on the Sagnac effect are a valuable tool in sensing and navigation and enable accurate measurements in applications ranging from spacecraft and aircraft to self-driving vehicles such as autonomous cars. As with any classical optical sensors, the ultimate performance of these devices is bounded by the standard quantum limit (SQL). Quantum-enhanced interferometry allows us to overcome this limit using non-classical states of light. Here, we report on an entangled-photon gyroscope that uses path-entangled NOON-states (N=2) to provide phase supersensitivity beyon…
Quantum interference, like Hong-Ou-Mandel interference, has played an important role to test fundamental concepts in quantum physics. We experimentally show that the multiple quantum interference effects enable the generation of high-performance polarization entangled photons. These photons have a high-emission rate, are degenerate, have a broadband distribution, and are postselection free. A quantum interferometric scheme, based on a round-trip configuration of a double-pass polarization Sagnac interferometer, makes it possible to use the large generation efficiency of polarization entangled …
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…
We consider the calibration of an optical quantum gyroscope by modeling two Sagnac interferometers, mounted approximately at right angles to each other. Reliable operation requires that we know the angle between the interferometers with high precision, and we show that a procedure akin to multi-position testing in inertial navigation systems can be generalized to the case of quantum interferometry. We find that while entanglement is a key resource within an individual Sagnac interferometer, its presence between the interferometers is a far more complicated story. The optimum level of entanglem…
Sensitive and accurate rotation sensing is a critical requirement for applications such as inertial navigation [1], north-finding [2], geophysical analysis [3], and tests of general relativity [4]. One effective technique used for rotation sensing is Sagnac interferometry, in which a wave is split, traverses two paths that enclose an area, and then recombined. The resulting interference signal depends on the rotation rate of the system and the area enclosed by the paths [5]. Optical Sagnac interferometers are an important component in present-day navigation systems [6], but suffer from limited…
We demonstrate the distribution of polarization-entangled photons for the purpose of quantum key distribution (QKD) along active telecom fibers. Entangled photon pairs of 810 nm wavelength generated by a Sagnac interferometer source were coupled into standard telecom single mode fibers. The fibers were either dark or carrying a standardized 1550 nm ethernet signals (1000BASE-ZX) with a nominal speed of 1 GBps from regular media converter devices, without any requirements on the optical power or spectrum transmitted. Our system demonstrates a QKD network covering 6 km in distance with a central…
In this Letter, the generation of 1.5 μm discrete frequency entangled two-photon state is realized based on a piece of commercial polarization maintaining fiber (PMF). It is connected with a polarization beam splitter to realize a modified Sagnac fiber loop (MSFL). Correlated two-photon states are generated through spontaneous four wave-mixing process along the two propagation directions of the MSFL, and output from the MSFL with orthogonal polarizations. The quantum interference of them is realized through a 45° polarization collimation between polarization axes of PMFs inside and outside the…
We present a fiber based source of polarization-entangled photon pairs that is well suited for quantum communication applications in the 1550nm band of standard fiber-optic telecommunications. Polarization entanglement is created by pumping a nonlinear-fiber Sagnac interferometer with two time-delayed orthogonally-polarized pump pulses and subsequently removing the time distinguishability by passing the parametrically scattered signal-idler photon pairs through a piece of birefringent fiber. Coincidence detection of the signal-idler photons yields biphoton interference with visibility greater …
