Heidelberg 2015 – scientific programme

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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik

Q 1: Quantum Optics I

Q 1.3: Talk

Monday, March 23, 2015, 12:00–12:15, C/HSO

Spectral noise analysis of optical frequency comb for quantum limited parameter estimation — •Valerian Thiel, Jonathan Roslund, Roman Schmeissner, Claude Fabre, and Nicolas Treps — Laboratoire Kastler Brossel, UPMC-Sorbonne Université, ENS, College de France, CNRS, Paris, France

Femtosecond optical frequency combs have found a widespread use in domains like metrology, spectroscopy, ranging measurements and optical clocks. In the general case of parameters estimation, we derived the ultimate limit of sensitivity, the so-called Cramér-Rao bound, and we showed that it can be experimentally achieved using a balanced homodyne detection.

In all these measurements, the knowledge of the frequency dependent noise of the comb is essential to assess the actual sensitivity of a given measurement scheme. Using experimental methods that were developed for quantum optics, we introduce a novel technique to assess the combs noise: a single-shot spectrally resolved multipixel homodyne detection that allows to characterize both the amplitude and the phase noise of the comb, as well as spectral correlations. We then extract noise matrices and provide an experimental realization of uncoupled broadband noise modes.

This is applied to absolute distance estimation using a solid-state frequency comb where both amplitude and phase noise of the source prevent one from achieving a quantum limited measurement.