skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Experimental implementation of phase locking in a nonlinear interferometer

Journal Article · · Applied Physics Letters
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1063/1.4931686· OSTI ID:22482112
;  [1];  [2]
  1. State Key Laboratory of Precision Spectroscopy, Department of Physics, East China Normal University, Shanghai 200062 (China)
  2. Homer L. Dodge Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Oklahoma, 440 West Brooks Street, Norman, Oklahoma 73019 (United States)

Based upon two cascade four-wave mixing processes in two identical hot rubidium vapor cells, a nonlinear interferometer has been experimentally realized [Jing et al., Appl. Phys. Lett. 99, 011110 (2011); Hudelist et al., Nat. Commun. 5, 3049 (2014)]. It has a higher degree of phase sensitivity than a traditional linear interferometer and has many potential applications in quantum metrology. Phase locking of the nonlinear interferometer is needed before it can find its way into applications. In this letter, we investigate the experimental implementation of phase locking of the relative phase between the three beams at different frequencies involved in such a nonlinear interferometer. We have utilized two different methods, namely, beat note locking and coherent modulation locking. We find that coherent modulation locking can achieve much better phase stability than beat note locking in our system. Our results pave the way for real applications of a nonlinear interferometer in precision measurement and quantum manipulation, for example, phase control in phase-sensitive N-wave mixing process, N-port nonlinear interferometer and quantum-enhanced real-time phase tracking.

OSTI ID:
22482112
Journal Information:
Applied Physics Letters, Vol. 107, Issue 12; Other Information: (c) 2015 AIP Publishing LLC; Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0003-6951
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English