Entanglement-seeded, dual, optical parametric amplification: Applications to quantum imaging and metrology

The study of optical parametric amplifiers (OPAs) has been successful in describing and creating nonclassical light for use in fields such as quantum metrology and quantum lithography [ Agarwal et al. J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 24 2 (2007)]. In this paper we present the theory of an OPA scheme utilizing an entangled state input. The scheme involves two identical OPAs seeded with the maximally path-entangled ∣N00N⟩ state (∣2,0⟩+∣0,2⟩)∕√2. The stimulated amplification results in output state probability amplitudes that have a dependence on the number of photons in each mode, which differs greatly from two-mode squeezed vacuum. A large family of entangled output states are found. Specific output states allow for the heralded creation of N=4 N00N states, which may be used for quantum lithography, to write sub-Rayleigh fringe patterns, and for quantum interferometry, to achieve Heisenberg-limited phase measurement sensitivity.