Quantum-enhanced interferometry with large heralded photon-number states

Published

June 14, 2020

Author(s)

G Thekkadath, M.E. Mycroft, B.A. Bell, C.G. Wade, A. Eckstein, David Phillips, R.B Patel, A. Buraczewski, Adriana Lita, Thomas Gerrits, Sae Woo Nam, M. Stobinska, A.I. Lvovsky, Ian Walmsley

Abstract

Quantum phenomena such as entanglement can improve fundamental limits on the sensitivity of a measurement probe. In optical interferometry, a probe consisting of N entangled photons provides up to a sqrt(N) enhancement in phase sensitivity compared to a classical probe of the same energy. Here, we employ high-gain parametric down-conversion sources and photon-number- resolving detectors to perform interferometry with novel heralded quantum probes of sizes up to N = 8 (i.e. measuring up to 16-photon coincidences). Our probes are created by injecting heralded photon-number states into an interferometer, and provide quantum-enhanced phase sensitivity even in the presence of significant optical loss. Our work paves the way towards quantum-enhanced interferometry using large entangled photonic states.

Citation

Physical Review Letters

Pub Type

Journals

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Keywords

quantum enhanced sensing, photon number resolving detectors, quantum optics

Citation

Thekkadath, G. , Mycroft, M. , Bell, B. , Wade, C. , Eckstein, A. , Phillips, D. , Patel, R. , Buraczewski, A. , Lita, A. , Gerrits, T. , Nam, S. , Stobinska, M. , Lvovsky, A. and Walmsley, I. (2020), Quantum-enhanced interferometry with large heralded photon-number states, Physical Review Letters, [online], https://tsapps.nist.gov/publication/get_pdf.cfm?pub_id=930462 (Accessed December 30, 2024)