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Eric Y. Zhu

Publications and source records attributed to Eric Y. Zhu.

15 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2023

Entangling entanglement: coupling frequency and polarization of biphotons on demand

Quantum information is often carried in the frequency and polarization degrees of freedom (DoFs) in single photons and entangled photons. We demonstrate a new approach to couple and decouple the frequency and polarization DoFs of broadband biphotons. Our approach is based on a common-path nonlinear interferometer (CP-NLI) with a linear dispersive medium and a polarization controller sandwiched in between two nonlinear media that generate the interfering biphotons. By adjusting the polarization controller, we can effectively manipulate the two DoFs. When the two DoFs are decoupled, maximally polarization-entangled biphotons are observed in the polarization DoF, while interference fringes are observed in the spectral intensity of the biphotons. When the two DoFs are coupled, however, interference fringes disappear from the spectral intensity and instead appear in the degree of polarization entanglement. The degree of polarization entanglement quantified by concurrence in principle can vary from 0 to 1 depending on the signal and idler photon frequencies. Our approach offers a convenient means of tuning the polarization entanglement and can be employed for arbitrary biphoton polarization state generation, with applications in quantum information processing and the study of fundamental physics.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2023

Machine-Learning-Derived Entanglement Witnesses

In this work, we show a correspondence between linear support vector machines (SVMs) and entanglement witnesses, and use this correspondence to generate entanglement witnesses for bipartite and tripartite qubit (and qudit) target entangled states. An SVM allows for the construction of a hyperplane that clearly delineates between separable states and the target entangled state; this hyperplane is a weighted sum of observables ('features') whose coefficients are optimized during the training of the SVM. We demonstrate with this method the ability to obtain witnesses that require only local measurements even when the target state is a non-stabilizer state. Furthermore, we show that SVMs are flexible enough to allow us to rank features, and to reduce the number of features systematically while bounding the inference error. This allows us to derive W state witnesses capable of detecting entanglement with fewer measurement terms than the fidelity method dominant in today's literature. The utility of this approach is demonstrated on quantum hardware furnished through the IBM Quantum Experience.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2021

Telecom-band Hyperentangled Photon Pairs from a Fiber-based Source

Hyperentanglement, the simultaneous and independent entanglement of quantum particles in multiple degrees of freedom, is a powerful resource that can be harnessed for efficient quantum information processing. In photonic systems, the two degrees of freedom (DoF) often used to carry quantum and classical information are polarization and frequency, thanks to their robustness in transmission, both in free space and in optical fibers. Telecom-band hyperentangled photons generated in optical fibers are of particular interest because they are compatible with existing fiber-optic infrastructure, and can be distributed over fiber networks with minimal loss. Here, we experimentally demonstrate the generation of telecom-band biphotons hyperentangled in both the polarization and frequency DoFs using a periodically-poled silica fiber and observe entanglement concurrences above 0.95 for both polarization and frequency DOFs. Furthermore, by concatenating a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference test for frequency entanglement and full state tomography for polarization entanglement in a single experiment, we can demonstrate simultaneous entanglement in both the polarization and frequency DOFs. The states produced by our hyperentanglement source can enable protocols such as dense coding and high-dimensional quantum key distribution.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2021

Real-time ultrasound sensing with a mode-optimized photonic crystal slab

Integrated photonic sensors can provide large scale, flexible detection schemes. Photonic crystal slabs (PCS) offer a miniaturized platform for wideband, sensitive ultrasound detection by exploiting the photoelastic effect in water. However, poor modal overlap with the sensing medium and non-negligible absorption loss of the aqueous medium have previously limited PCS sensor performance. In this study, we detail the development and optimization of a PCS-based acoustic sensor, by adding to it a low-loss high-index polymer cladding layer. Exploiting a mode-optimized TM-like optical resonance present in a PCS, with high bulk index sensitivity (>600 nm/RIU) and quality factor Q (>8000), we demonstrate real-time ultrasound-sensing at a noise equivalent pressure (NEP) of 170 Pa (1.9 Pa/rt Hz). The PCS sensor is backside-coupled to optical fiber which, along with its intensity-based ultrasound-sensing architecture, will allow us to scale up easily to a 2D array. This work paves the way to a sensitive compact ultrasound detector for photoacoustic-based diagnostics and monitoring of tissue.

physics.app-ph↗
arXiv2021

Broadband Fiber-based Entangled Photon Pair Source at Telecom O-band

In this letter, we report a polarization-entangled photon-pair source based on type-II spontaneous parametric down conversion at telecom O-band in periodically poled silica fiber (PPSF). The photon-pair source exhibits more than 130 nm (~24 THz) emission bandwidth centered at 1306.6 nm. The broad emission spectrum results in a short biphoton correlation time and we experimentally demonstrate a Hong-Ou-Mandel interference dip with a full width of 26.6 fs at half maximum. Owing to the low birefringence of the PPSF, the biphotons generated from type-II SPDC are polarization-entangled over the entire emission bandwidth, with a measured fidelity to a maximally entangled state greater than 95.4%. The biphoton source provides the broadest bandwidth entangled biphotons at O-band to our knowledge.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Recovering the full dimensionality of hyperentanglement in collinear photon pairs

Exploiting hyperentanglement of photon pairs, that is, simultaneous entanglement in multiple degrees of freedom(DOFs), increases the dimensionality of Hilbert spaces for quantum information processing. However, generation of hyperentangled photon pairs collinearlly, while produces high brightness, results in a smaller Hilbert space due to the two photons being in the same spatial mode. In this letter, we point out that one can recover the full dimensionality of such hyperentanglement through a simple interference set up, similar to the time-reversed Hong-Ou-Mandel (TR-HOM) process. Different from the standard TR-HOM, we point out a critical phase condition has to be satisfied in order to recover the hyperentanglement. We theoretically analyze the realization of this approach and discuss the feasibility of generating truly hyperentangled photon pairs. Our proposed approach does not require post-selection and hence enables efficient hyper-entangled photon pairs generation for high-dimensional quantum applications.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Biphoton shaping with cascaded entangled-photon sources

Quantum entanglement is an integral part of quantum optics and has been exploited in areas such as computation, cryptography and metrology. The entanglement between photons can be present in various degrees of freedom (DOFs), and even the simplest bi-partite systems can occupy a large Hilbert space. Therefore, it is desirable to exploit this multi-dimensional space for various quantum applications by fully controlling the properties of the entangled photons in multiple DOFs. While current entangled-photon sources are capable of generating entanglement in one or more DOFs, there is currently a lack of practical techniques that can shape and control the entanglement properties in multiple DOFs. Here we show that cascading two or more entangled-photon sources with tunable linear media in between allows us to generate photon-pairs whose entanglement properties can be tailored and shaped in the frequency and polarisation domains. We first develop a quantum mechanical model to study the quantum state generated from the cascade structure with special considerations paid to the effects of pump temporal coherence, linear dispersion, and in-structure polarisation transformation applied between the entangled-photon sources. We then experimentally generate photon-pairs with tunable entanglement properties by manipulating the dispersion and birefringence properties of the linear medium placed in between two entangled-photon sources. This is done in an all-fibre, phase stable, and alignment-free configuration. Our results show that the cascade structure offers a great deal of flexibility in tuning the properties of entangled photons in multiple DOFs, opening up a new avenue in engineering quantum light sources.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Alignment-free dispersion measurement with interfering biphotons

Measuring the dispersion of photonic devices with small dispersion-length products is challenging due to the phase-sensitive, and alignment-intensive nature of conventional methods. In this letter, we demonstrate a quantum technique to extract the second-, and third-order chromatic dispersion of a short single-mode fiber using a fiber-based quantum nonlinear interferometer. The interferometer consists of two cascaded fiber-based biphoton sources, with each source acting as a nonlinear beamsplitter. A fiber under test is placed in between these two sources, and introduces a frequency-dependent phase that is imprinted upon the biphoton spectrum (interferogram) at the output of the interferometer. This interferogram contains within it the dispersion properties of the test fiber. Our technique has three novel features: (1) The broadband nature of the biphoton sources used in our setup allows accurate dispersion measurements on test devices with small dispersion-length products; (2) our all-fiber common-path interferometer requires no beam alignment or phase stabilization; (3) multiple phase-matching processes supported in our biphoton sources enables dispersion measurements at different wavelengths, which yields the third-order dispersion, achieved for the first time using a quantum optical technique.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2019

Refractive-Index-based ultrasound sensing with photonic crystal slabs

We demonstrate ultrasound detection with 500-$μ\mathrm{m}$-diameter photonic-crystal slab (PCS) sensors fabricated from CMOS-compatible technology. An ultrasound signal impinging a PCS sensor causes a local modulation of the refractive index (RI) of the medium (water) in which the PCS is immersed, resulting in a periodic spectral shift of the optical resonance of the PCS. The acoustic sensitivity is found to scale with the index sensitivity $S$ and quality factor $Q$. A noise equivalent pressure (NEP) of 650 Pa with averaging (7.4 Pa$/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$) and relative wavelength shifts of up to 4.3$\times10^{-5}$ MPa$^{-1}$ are measured. The frequency response of the sensors is observed to be flat from 1-20 MHz, with the range limited only by our measurement apparatus.

physics.app-ph↗
arXiv2018

Turn-Key Diode-Pumped All-Fiber Broadband Polarization-Entangled Photon Source

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 consistently over this time period.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

Nanotesla-level, shield-less, field-compensation-free, wave-mixing-enhanced body-temperature atomic magnetometry for biomagnetism

We report an optical inelastic-wave-mixing-enhanced atomic magnetometry technique that results in nT-level magnetic field detection at temperatures compatible with the human body without magnetic shielding, zero-field compensation, or high-frequency modulated phase-locking spectroscopy. Using Gaussian magnetic pulses that mimic the transient magnetic field produced by an action potential on a frog's nerve, we demonstrate more than 300,000-fold (550-fold) enhancement of magneto-optical rotation signal power spectral-density (power amplitude) over the conventional single-beam $Λ-$scheme atomic magnetometry method. This new technique may bring possibilities for extremely sensitive magnetic field imaging of biological systems accessible via an optical fiber in clinical environments.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2018

Breaking the energy-symmetry blockade in magneto-optical rotation

The magneto-optical polarization rotation effect has prolific applications in various research areas spanning the scientific spectrum including space and interstellar research, nano-technology and material science, biomedical imaging, and sub-atomic particle research. In nonlinear magneto-optical rotation (NMOR), the intensity of a linearly-polarized probe field affects the rotation of its own polarization plane while propagating in a magnetized medium. However, typical NMOR signals of conventional single-beam $Λ-$scheme atomic magnetometers are peculiarly small, requiring sophisticated magnetic shielding under complex operational conditions. Here, we show the presence of an energy-symmetry blockade that undermines the NMOR effect in conventional single-beam $Λ-$scheme atomic magnetometers. We further demonstrate, both experimentally and theoretically, an inelastic wave-mixing technique that breaks this NMOR blockade, resulting in more than five orders of magnitude ($>$300,000-fold) NMOR optical signal power spectral density enhancement never before seen with conventional single-beam $Λ-$scheme atomic magnetometers. This new technique, demonstrated with substantially reduced light intensities, may lead to many applications, especially in the field of bio-magnetism and high-resolution low-field magnetic imaging.

physics.optics↗
arXiv2017

Polarization-entangled photon pair sources based on spontaneous four wave mixing assisted by polarization mode dispersion

Photonic-based qubits and integrated photonic circuits have enabled demonstrations of quantum information processing (QIP) that promises to transform the way in which we compute and communicate. To that end, sources of polarization-entangled photon pair states are an important enabling technology, especially for polarization-based protocols. However, such states are difficult to prepare in an integrated photonic circuit. Scalable semiconductor sources typically rely on nonlinear optical effects where polarization mode dispersion (PMD) degrades entanglement. Here, we directly generate polarization-entangled states in an AlGaAs waveguide, aided by the PMD and without any compensation steps. We perform quantum state tomography and report a raw concurrence as high as 0.91$\pm$0.01 observed in the 1100-nm-wide waveguide. The scheme allows direct Bell state generation with an observed maximum fidelity of 0.90$\pm$0.01 from the 800-nm-wide waveguide. Our demonstration paves the way for sources that allow for the implementation of polarization-encoded protocols in large-scale quantum photonic circuits.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2016

Correlated photon pair generation in AlGaAs nanowaveguides via spontaneous four-wave mixing

We demonstrate a source of correlated photon pairs which will have applications in future integrated quantum photonic circuits. The source utilizes spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) in a dispersion-engineered nanowaveguide made of AlGaAs, which has merits of negligible two-photon absorption and low spontaneous Raman scattering (SpRS). We observe a coincidence-to-accidental (CAR) ratio up to 177, mainly limited by propagation losses. Experimental results agree well with theoretical predictions of the SFWM photon pair generation and the SpRS noise photon generation. We also study the effects from the SpRS, propagation losses, and waveguide lengths on the quality of our source.

physics.optics↗