Danissa Ortega

Major: Engineering Physics
Mentors: Max Meunier & Joshua Castro, Professor Galan Moody

Generation of Squeezed Light for Enhanced Quantum Sensing

Quantum sensing uses the strange properties of quantum physics to obtain measurements with far more accuracy than former sensors that rely on classical physics. Such sensors have been used for highly sensitive and precise measurements that have been applied to a plethora of fields, from detecting gravitational waves in astronomy to detecting cancerous cells in medicine. For these measurements, our goal is to reduce the noise below the standard quantum limit known as shot noise. By modulating the quantum noise of the light, we can suppress/amplify it, known as squeezing. This is done by pumping light into a ring resonator, which converts the photons to a squeezed state with measurable quantum properties. My particular focus is optimizing the ring width, coupling condition, and laser power, to maximize the squeezed light generation. By refining these factors, we can observe the generated squeezed states or quantify their noise reduction relative to the shot noise. As a result, 0.2 dB of squeezed light has been measured, translating to 3.3 dB of squeezed light within the waveguide. Measurement limitations could be due to decoherence with the environment, low escape efficiency of the photons, and coupling losses between the components. Regardless, the squeezing demonstrates enhanced sensing, particularly with an AlGaAs integrated photonic circuit, the first of its kind. This material is proving to be ideal for its nonlinear properties, enabling high photon conversion, low pump power, and energy-efficient, enhanced sensing that can be applied across the scientific community.