We experimentally study optical homodyne and heterodyne detections with the same setup, which is flexible to manipulate the signal sideband modulation. When the modulation only generates a single signal sideband, the ...We experimentally study optical homodyne and heterodyne detections with the same setup, which is flexible to manipulate the signal sideband modulation. When the modulation only generates a single signal sideband, the light field measurement by mixing the single sideband at ω0 ±? with a strong local oscillator at the carrier frequency ω0on a beam splitter becomes balanced heterodyne detection. When two signal sidebands at ω0 ±? are generated and the relative phase of the two sidebands is locked, this measurement corresponds to optical balanced homodyne detection. With this setup, we may confirm directly that the signal-to-noise ratio with heterodyne detection is two-fold worse than that with homodyne detection. This work will have important applications in quantum state measurement and quantum information.展开更多
基金supported by the National Basic Research Program of China(Grant No.2011CB921601)the National Natural Science Foundation of China(Grant Nos.10725416 and 60821004)
文摘We experimentally study optical homodyne and heterodyne detections with the same setup, which is flexible to manipulate the signal sideband modulation. When the modulation only generates a single signal sideband, the light field measurement by mixing the single sideband at ω0 ±? with a strong local oscillator at the carrier frequency ω0on a beam splitter becomes balanced heterodyne detection. When two signal sidebands at ω0 ±? are generated and the relative phase of the two sidebands is locked, this measurement corresponds to optical balanced homodyne detection. With this setup, we may confirm directly that the signal-to-noise ratio with heterodyne detection is two-fold worse than that with homodyne detection. This work will have important applications in quantum state measurement and quantum information.
