Quantum microwave photonics (QMWP) is an innovative approach that combines energy–time entangled biphoton sources as the optical carrier with time-correlated single-photon detection for high-speed radio frequency (RF) signal recovery. This groundbreaking method offers unique advantages, such as nonlocal RF signal encoding and robust resistance to dispersion-induced frequency fading. We explore the versatility of processing the quantum microwave photonic signal by utilizing coincidence window selection on the biphoton coincidence distribution. The demonstration includes finely tunable RF phase shifting, flexible multitap transversal filtering (with up to 14 taps), and photonically implemented RF mixing, leveraging the nonlocal RF mapping characteristic of QMWP. These accomplishments significantly enhance the capability of microwave photonic systems in processing ultraweak signals, opening up new possibilities for various applications.
Publisher's Note: This paper, originally published on 16 October 2023, was replaced with a corrected/revised version on 29 November 2023. If you downloaded the original PDF but are unable to access the revision, please contact SPIE Digital Library Customer Service for assistance.
Ultra-stable laser with PDH (Pound-Drever-Hall) frequency stabilization technology is an indispensable tool in optical atomic clocks, gravitational wave detection, and optical fiber optical frequency transfer. As the demand for space and transportable science missions rises, the ultra-stable laser is required to have an auto-lock function. During auto-lock, the PZT is scanned in pre-set steps to find the resonance point with the optical reference cavity. To determine steps for the first lock automatically and update steps when pre-set steps are changed by long-term drift, the Grid Search algorithm with priori knowledge is utilized. To verify the reliability of the algorithm, the system out of lock is simulated 904 times. The relock with the parameters determined by the Grid Search algorithm is achieved with a success rate of 100% and a mean relock time of about 0.9s. The Grid Search algorithm with priori knowledge proposed in this paper can optimize the hyperparameters in auto-lock.
The quantum microwave photonics in radio-over-fiber (QMWP-RoF) systems has been recently demonstrated with a time-energy entangled biphoton source as the optical carrier combined with the single-photon detection technique. The results showed that the QMWP-RoF can realize the nonlocal recovery of the RF modulation from the unmodulated signal photons. Moreover, the RF modulation on the dispersed idler photons can be distilled. In this letter, we further investigate the SNRs of the recovered RF modulation as a function of the temporal selection window on the coincidence distribution of the biphotons. According to the investigation, the highest SNR of the nonlocally recovered RF modulation from the non-dispersed signal photons is achieved when the selection temporal width on the photon approaches the FWHM of the coincidence distribution, which may experience broadening due to the dispersion. On the other hand, the highest SNR of the distilled RF modulation from the dispersed idler photons is achieved at a fixed temporal width regardless of the dispersion effect. The results provide a guideline for optimizing the QMWP-RoF system under different dispersive conditions, which can better illustrate the resistance of the dispersion.
The dispersive wavelength to time mapping with the entangled photon source is an effective way of measuring the spectral information of the entangled photon pairs. This approach avoids the usage of spectral filtering equipment like the monochromator, which reduces the measuring time and the system’s complexity. The wavelength-to-time mapping method can be divided into local mapping and nonlocal mapping depending on whether the measurement utilizes the frequency correlation of the entangled photon pairs. For local mapping, the spectral information of signal photons is directly mapped to the time domain through dispersion without utilizing the frequency correlation between the photon pair. For nonlocal mapping, the signal photons with spectral information are directly detected. And the corresponding idler photons are dispersed. With the help of the frequency correlation between the photon pair, the spectral information on signal photons can be recorded in count measurement. In this letter, the two types of mapping results are theoretically and experimentally compared. The theoretical result indicates that the two types of mapping results are the same when the pump light of the entangled source is ideal monochromatic with infinite linewidth. However, when using a real pump light with finite linewidth, the theoretical and experimental result of the two types of mapping is different. The difference in the result indicates the potential influence of the mapping method, which can further help to select a more suitable mapping method for different measuring conditions.
A measurement of sub-kilohertz laser linewidth is demonstrated by a recirculating self-heterodyne detection, in which the delay time is far less than the coherence time of the laser. The system parameters are optimized through theoretical analysis to improve the circulation rate of the beat signal. On this basis, we build a loss-compensated recirculating selfheterodyne interferometer with only a 2 km SMF-28 optical fiber spool. Thanks to the recirculating structure with an acoustic optical modulator (AOM), multi-group beat notes with high circulation rate can be measured simultaneously, which agree well with the theoretical analysis. By simulating and fitting the spectra of high-order beat notes with different delay times, the average linewidth with less statistical errors is obtained. The loss-compensated recirculating selfheterodyne method with short fiber can avoid single measurement error and almost neglect the influence of the broadening spectrum induced by the 1/f frequency noise, providing a powerful candidate for precise measurement of sub-kilohertz laser linewidth.
Based on frequency entangled sources and arrival time measurements, a best time synchronization stability result of fewer than 100 fs has been reported over 20km fiber links, verifying the superiority of quantum time synchronization. In this paper, a two-way quantum time transfer over 50 km fiber links with the same frequency standard was implemented, with a short-term stability of 2.63 ps at an averaging time of 18 s and a long-term stability of 79.2 fs at 73700 s. The system accuracy in terms of the 50km fiber transfer length is measured as 524.75 ps, the agreement of which with the theoretical simulation illustrates that improving the spectral consistency of the two entangled sources will significantly improve the accuracy. This result shows that the fiber-optic two-way quantum time transfer can be successfully extended to a metropolitan fiber link distance of around 50 km or longer, not only maintaining the transfer stability well below picosecond but also promising further improvements in synchronization accuracy.
A new type of single-photon spectrograph combining a tunable optical filter and a dispersive element is presented for measurement of the spectral properties of the two-photon state. In comparison with the previous single-photon spectrograph which is merely based on the dispersive Fourier transformation (DFT) technique, this scheme avoids the need for additional wavelength calibration and the electronic laser trigger for coincidence measurement; therefore, its application is extended to continuous wave (CW) pumped two-photon sources. The achievable precision of the spectrum measurement has also been discussed in theory and demonstrated experimentally with a CW pumped periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide-based spontaneous parametric down conversion photon source. Such a device is expected to be a versatile tool for the characterization of the frequency entangled two-photon state.
KEYWORDS: Dispersion, Signal processing, Single photon detectors, Modulation, Signal detection, Superconducting detectors, Nanowires, Knowledge management, Time correlated photon counting
A nonlocal wavelength-to-time mapping method based on the entangled photon sources is proposed for nonlocal wavelength measurement. In this approach, the spectrally modulated optical carrier from the signal path is detected the single-photon detector. The dispersive medium is applied on the idler path before the idler photons reaches another SPD. With the help of GVD, the frequency correlation is transformed to the correlation of arrival time, when observed in coincidence count. As a result, the spectral pattern of the signal photon can be nonlocally transformed into temporal shape, even though there is no dispersion in the signal path. A proof-of-concept experiment demonstrates the wavelength measurement around 1560 nm, with a resolution of 0.2 nm.
Narrow linewidth frequency-stabilized lasers are crucial in the research of optical clocks, precision spectroscopy, and tests of fundamental physics. Narrow linewidth laser with the wavelength of 698nm is essential in the development of Sr atom optical clocks that will be used for the frequency standards in the future. Here we report the recent development of ultra-stable lasers at national time service center, Chinese academy of sciences (NTSC). In the experiment, the frequency of an extended cavity diode laser at the wavelength of 698nm is stabilized to a reference cavity with a finesse of ~130000 using the Pound-Drever-Hall methods. The optical heterodyne beat between two independent lasers shows that the linewidth of one diode laser reaches 0.88Hz. The fractional frequency stability removed linear frequency shift is better than 2×10-15.
Utilizing the mechanism of cavity secondary resonance, we proposed a tunable hybrid optical filter combined band-pass spectral and low-pass noise filtering for femtosecond lasers. The experimental results shown that, by stabilizing the cavity length to different transmission peaks, the 3 dB bandwidths of the spectral filter can be tuned from 1.78 nm to 2.8 nm and the tunable cut-off frequency of the low-pass noise filter can be identified by their different attenuations which vary from 9.5 dB to 15.2 dB, of the relaxation oscillation in the laser relative intensity noise (RIN).
We demonstrate an optical frequency transfer over a 377 km-long fiber link using three bi-directional Erbium-doped fiber amplifiers (EDFAs) to compensate the fiber attenuation. Through active phase noise cancellation, we obtain a transfer instability of 2.2×10-14 at 1 s and 6.2×10-17 at 2000 s. The lasing effects induced by EDFAs are observed in the transfer link which reduce the gain performance of the EDFAs and deteriorate the stability of the signal. In the paper, the factors that may induce the lasing effects is discussed, specially, improper phase locking parameters may stimulate the lasing effects. The phase noise of the 377 km link and the transfer instability versus fiber lengths is also researched. This work makes a good foundation for our future research on long-distance optical frequency transfer.
Two diode lasers at 698 nm are separately locked to two independent optical reference cavities with a finesse of about 128,000 by the Pound–Drever–Hall method. The more accurate coefficient between voltage and frequency of the error signal is measured, with which quantitative evaluation of the effect of many noises on the frequency stability can be made much more conveniently. A temperature-insensitive method is taken to reduce the effect of residual amplitude modulation on laser frequency stability. With an active fiber noise cancellation, the optical heterodyne beat between two independent lasers shows that the linewidth of one diode laser reaches 1 Hz. The fractional Allan deviation removed linear frequency shift less than 30 mHz/s is below 2.6×10−15 with 1- to 100-s average time.
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