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DOE OSTI2016

Naturally stable Sagnac–Michelson nonlinear interferometer

Interferometers measure a wide variety of dynamic processes by converting a phase change into an intensity change. Nonlinear interferometers, making use of nonlinear media in lieu of beamsplitters, promise substantial improvement in the quest to reach the ultimate sensitivity limits. Here we demonstrate a new nonlinear interferometer utilizing a single parametric amplifier for mode mixing conceptually, a nonlinear version of the conventional Michelson interferometer with its arms collapsed together. We observe up to 99.9% interference visibility and find evidence for noise reduction based on phase-sensitive gain. As a result, our configuration utilizes fewer components than previous demonstrations and requires no active stabilization, offering new capabilities for practical nonlinear interferometric-based sensors.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2016

Two-path plasmonic interferometer with integrated detector

An electrically tunable terahertz two-path plasmonic interferometer with an integrated detection element can down convert a terahertz field to a rectified DC signal. The integrated detector utilizes a resonant plasmonic homodyne mixing mechanism that measures the component of the plasma waves in-phase with an excitation field that functions as the local oscillator in the mixer. The plasmonic interferometer comprises two independently tuned electrical paths. The plasmonic interferometer enables a spectrometer-on-a-chip where the tuning of electrical path length plays an analogous role to that of physical path length in macroscopic Fourier transform interferometers.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2018

Non-reciprocal Interferometers for Matter Waves

We propose non-reciprocal interferometers for matter waves and explore them by means of modeling. These interferometers may be implemented as asymmetric quantum rings with broken time-inversion symmetry. Our preliminary analyses lead us to predict that these devices will feature asymmetric transport properties for particles such as electrons, for which the interferometers’ ground states act as directional filters. As a function of the electron velocity, the filters seem to let electrons preferentially pass in one direction rather than in the reverse, thereby reducing the entropy of the electron systems in the contacts. Mechanisms are discussed that are candidates to prevent directional filtering if the filters are operating in thermal equilibrium with incoherent electron reservoirs.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗
DOE OSTI2013

An electron Talbot-Lau interferometer and magnetic field sensing

We present a demonstration of a three grating Talbot-Lau interferometer for electrons. As a proof of principle, the interferometer is used to measure magnetic fields. The device is similar to the classical Moiré deflectometer. The possibility to extend this work to build a scaled-up electron deflectometer or interferometer for sensitive magnetic field sensing is discussed.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Measurement method for roll angular displacement with a high resolution by using diffraction gratings and a heterodyne interferometer

The roll angle measurement is difficult to be achieved directly using a typical commercial interferometer due to its low sensitivity in axial direction, where the axial direction is orthogonal to the plane of the roll angular displacement. A roll angle measurement method combined diffraction gratings with a laser heterodyne interferometer is discussed in this paper. The diffraction grating placed in the plane of a roll angular displacement and the interferometer arranged in the plane's orthogonal direction, constitute the measurement pattern for the roll angle with high resolution. The roll angular displacement, considered as the linear, can be tested precisely when the corresponding angle is very small. Using the proposed method, the angle roll measurement obtains the high resolution of 0.002{sup ″}. Experiment has proved its feasibility and practicability.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2014

Design of interferometer system for Keda Torus eXperiment using terahertz solid-state diode sources

A solid-state source based terahertz (THz) interferometer diagnostic system has been designed and characterized for the Keda Torus eXperiment (KTX). The THz interferometer utilizes the planar diodes based frequency multiplier (X48) to provide the probing beam at fixed frequency 0.650 THz, and local oscillator is provided by an independent solid-state diode source with tunable frequency (0.650 THz +/− 10 MHz). Both solid-state sources have approximately 1 mW power. The planar-diode mixers optimized for high sensitivity, ∼750 mV/mW, are used in the heterodyne detection system, which permits multichannel interferometer on KTX with a low phase noise. A sensitivity of {sub min} = 4.5 × 10{sup 16} m{sup −2} and a temporal resolution of 0.2 μs have been achieved during the initial bench test.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Solid optical ring interferometer for high-throughput feedback-free spectral analysis and filtering

We describe a simple and inexpensive optical ring interferometer for use in high-resolution spectral analysis and filtering. It consists of a solid cuboid, reflection-coated on two opposite sides, in which constructive interference occurs for waves in a rhombic trajectory. Due to its monolithic design, the interferometer’s resonance frequencies are insensitive to environmental disturbances over time. Additional advantages are its simplicity of alignment, high-throughput, and feedback-free operation. If desired, it can be stabilized with a secondary laser without disturbance of the primary signal. We illustrate the use of the interferometer for the measurement of the spectral Mollow triplet from a quantum dot and characterize its long-term stability for filtering applications.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2015

Measurement of the transmission phase of an electron in a quantum two-path interferometer

A quantum two-path interferometer allows for direct measurement of the transmission phase shift of an electron, providing useful information on coherent scattering problems. In mesoscopic systems, however, the two-path interference is easily smeared by contributions from other paths, and this makes it difficult to observe the true transmission phase shift. To eliminate this problem, multi-terminal Aharonov-Bohm (AB) interferometers have been used to derive the phase shift by assuming that the relative phase shift of the electrons between the two paths is simply obtained when a smooth shift of the AB oscillations is observed. Nevertheless, the phase shifts using such a criterion have sometimes been inconsistent with theory. On the other hand, we have used an AB ring contacted to tunnel-coupled wires and acquired the phase shift consistent with theory when the two output currents through the coupled wires oscillate with well-defined anti-phase. Here, we investigate thoroughly these two criteria used to ensure a reliable phase measurement, the anti-phase relation of the two output currents, and the smooth phase shift in the AB oscillation. We confirm that the well-defined anti-phase relation ensures a correct phase measurement with a quantum two-path interference. In contrast, we find that even in a situation where the anti-phase relation is less well-defined, the smooth phase shift in the AB oscillation can still occur but does not give the correct transmission phase due to contributions from multiple paths. This indicates that the phase relation of the two output currents in our interferometer gives a good criterion for the measurement of the true transmission phase, while the smooth phase shift in the AB oscillation itself does not.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2015

A closed-loop phase-locked interferometer for wide bandwidth position sensing

This article describes a position sensitive interferometer with closed-loop control of the reference mirror. A calibrated nanopositioner is used to lock the interferometer phase to the most sensitive point in the interferogram. In this configuration, large low-frequency movements of the sensor mirror can be detected from the control signal applied to the nanopositioner and high-frequency short-range signals can be measured directly from the photodiode. It is demonstrated that these two signals are complementary and can be summed to find the total displacement. The resulting interferometer has a number of desirable characteristics: it is optically simple, does not require polarization or modulation to detect the direction of motion, does not require fringe-counting or interpolation electronics, and has a bandwidth equal to that of the photodiode. Experimental results demonstrate the frequency response analysis of a high-speed positioning stage. The proposed instrument is ideal for measuring the frequency response of nanopositioners, electro-optical components, MEMs devices, ultrasonic devices, and sensors such as surface acoustic wave detectors.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

30-lens interferometer for high energy x-rays

We report a hard X-ray multilens interferometer consisting of 30 parallel compound refractive lenses. Under coherent illumination each CRL creates a diffraction limited focal spot - secondary source. An overlapping of coherent beams from these sources resulting in the interference pattern which has a rich longitudinal structure in accordance with the Talbot imaging formalism. The proposed interferometer was experimentally tested at ID11 ESRF beamline for the photon energies 32 keV and 65 keV. The fundamental and fractional Talbot images were recorded with the high resolution CCD camera. An effective source size in the order of 15 µm was determined from the first Talbot image proving that the multilens interferometer can be used as a high resolution beam diagnostic tool.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

A high speed compact microwave interferometer for density fluctuation measurements in Sino-UNIted Spherical Tokamak

A single-channel 3 mm interferometer has been developed for plasma density diagnostics in the Sino-UNIted Spherical Tokamak (SUNIST). The extremely compact microwave interferometer utilizes one corrugated feed horn antenna for both emitting and receiving the microwave. The beam path lies on the equatorial plane so the system would not suffer from beam path deflection problems due to the symmetry of the cross section. A focusing lens group and an oblique vacuum window are carefully designed to boost the signal to noise ratio, which allows this system to show good performance even with the small-diameter central column itself as a reflector, without a concave mirror. The whole system discards the reference leg for maximum compactness, which is particularly suitable for the small-sized tokamak. An auto-correcting algorithm is developed to calculate the phase evolution, and the result displays good phase stability of the whole system. The intermediate frequency is adjustable and can reach its full potential of 2 MHz for best temporal resolution. Multiple measurements during ohmic discharges proved the interferometer’s capability to track typical density fluctuations in SUNIST, which enables this system to be utilized in the study of MHD activities.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2016

A phase contrast imaging–interferometer system for detection of multiscale electron density fluctuations on DIII-D

Heterodyne interferometry and phase contrast imaging (PCI) are robust, mature techniques for measuring low-k and high-k electron density fluctuations, respectively. This work describes the first-ever implementation of a combined PCI–interferometer. The combined system uses a single 10.6 μm probe beam, two interference schemes, and two detectors to measure electron density fluctuations at large spatiotemporal bandwidth (10 kHz <f < 5 MHz and 0 cm{sup -1} ≤k ≤ 20 cm{sup -1}), allowing simultaneous measurement of ion- and electron-scale instabilities. Further, correlating our interferometer’s measurements with those from DIII-D’s pre-existing, toroidally separated interferometer allows core-localized, low-n MHD studies that may otherwise be inaccessible via external magnetic measurements. The combined diagnostic’s small port requirements and minimal access restrictions make it well-suited to the harsh neutron environments and limited port space expected in next-step devices.

46 INSTRUMENTATION RELATED TO NUCLEAR SCIENCE AND ↗
DOE OSTI2018

Narrow-band fibre reflector based on a fibre Bragg grating reflection interferometer

Narrow-band filtering in reflected light using a reflection interferometer with a fibre Bragg grating (FBG) as its back mirror is demonstrated for the first time. The reflection interferometer is made in SMF-28e single-mode fibre, and the faces of its front mirror, which includes a thin metallic film, differ in reflectance. The reflection bandwidth of a test sample is 0.5 pm (62 MHz) at a wavelength of 1556 nm (Q-factor of 3 × 10{sup 6}), its maximum reflectance is 0.21, and its contrast is 10{sup 2}. The use of a narrow-band FBG instead of thin-film broadband mirrors allows spectral selection to be significantly improved owing to an increase in the length of the interferometer base. (paper)

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2020

Features of correlation measurements of the parameters of pulsed hyperspectral optical fields using an asymmetric interferometer

Differences in correlation measurements of the parameters of pulsed hyperspectral optical fields using symmetric and asymmetric interferometers are considered. It is shown analytically that the resulting cross-correlation function is sensitive to phase perturbations in the original wave field. The considered setup, which contains a telescopic reflective 4f system of parabolic mirrors in one arm, demonstrates that in the case of an asymmetric interferometer, the presence of aberrations leads to degradation of the reconstructed image, whereas in the case of symmetric interferometers these aberrations do not affect the result. (paper)

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Development of a wide bandwidth heterodyne dispersion interferometer for electron density measurement of atmospheric pressure plasmas

One of the challenges of electron density measurements of an atmospheric pressure plasma (APP) with a laser interferometer is the significant and unwanted phase shift caused by changes in the neutral gas density. These unwanted phase shifts can be mitigated and plasma density measured using an interferometer architecture called a dispersion interferometer (DI). A DI is composed of two nonlinear orientation patterned GaAs crystals for frequency doubling and measures the phase shift induced by a plasma in the interference signal between two second-harmonic beams. Measurement of plasma dynamics or a short plasma pulse in less than a millisecond is enabled with heterodyne detection in a DI using an acousto-optic cell with a frequency of 40 MHz. This heterodyne DI (HDI) is targeted to measure APPs in an electron density range of 10 20 –10 24 m −3 . Finally, the HDI achieves a line-integrated density resolution of 2 × 10 15 m −2 (a phase resolution of 0.005°) with a time constant of 1 μs using ensemble averaging techniques.

atmospheric pressure plasma↗
DOE OSTI2013

Subnanoradian X-ray phase-contrast imaging using a far-field interferometer of nanometric phase gratings

Hard X-ray phase-contrast imaging characterizes the electron density distribution in an object without the need for radiation absorption. The power of phase contrast to resolve subtle changes, such as those in soft tissue structures, lies in its ability to detect minute refractive bending of X-rays. Here we report a far-field, two-arm interferometer based on the new nanometric phase gratings, which can detect X-ray refraction with subnanoradian sensitivity, and at the same time overcomes the fundamental limitation of ultra-narrow bandwidths (Dl/lB10 4) of the current, most sensitive methods based on crystal interferometers. On a 1.5% bandwidth synchrotron source, we demonstrate clear visualization of blood vessels in unstained mouse organs in simple projection views, with over an order-of-magnitude higher phase contrast than current near-field grating interferometers.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗
DOE OSTI2022

Impact of bulk-edge coupling on observation of anyonic braiding statistics in quantum Hall interferometers

Abstract Quantum Hall interferometers have been used to probe fractional charge and statistics of quasiparticles. We present measurements of a small Fabry–Perot interferometer in which the electrostatic coupling constants which affect interferometer behavior can be determined experimentally. Near the center of the ν = 1/3 state this device exhibits Aharonov–Bohm interference interrupted by a few discrete phase jumps, and Φ 0 oscillations at higher and lower magnetic fields, consistent with theoretical predictions for detection of anyonic statistics. We estimate the electrostatic parameters K I and K I L by two methods: using the ratio of oscillation periods in compressible versus incompressible regions, and from finite-bias conductance measurements. We find that the extracted K I and K I L can account for the deviation of the phase jumps from the theoretical anyonic phase θ a = 2 π /3. At integer states, we find that K I and K I L can account for the Aharonov–Bohm and Coulomb-dominated behavior of different edge states.

77 NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY↗
DOE OSTI2022

A compact cold-atom interferometer with a high data-rate grating magneto-optical trap and a photonic-integrated-circuit-compatible laser system

Abstract The extreme miniaturization of a cold-atom interferometer accelerometer requires the development of novel technologies and architectures for the interferometer subsystems. Here, we describe several component technologies and a laser system architecture to enable a path to such miniaturization. We developed a custom, compact titanium vacuum package containing a microfabricated grating chip for a tetrahedral grating magneto-optical trap (GMOT) using a single cooling beam. In addition, we designed a multi-channel photonic-integrated-circuit-compatible laser system implemented with a single seed laser and single sideband modulators in a time-multiplexed manner, reducing the number of optical channels connected to the sensor head. In a compact sensor head containing the vacuum package, sub-Doppler cooling in the GMOT produces 15 μK temperatures, and the GMOT can operate at a 20 Hz data rate. We validated the atomic coherence with Ramsey interferometry using microwave spectroscopy, then demonstrated a light-pulse atom interferometer in a gravimeter configuration for a 10 Hz measurement data rate and T = 0–4.5 ms interrogation time, resulting in Δ g / g = 2.0 × 10 −6 . This work represents a significant step towards deployable cold-atom inertial sensors under large amplitude motional dynamics.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗