Improved phase sensitivity of an SU(1,1) interferometer based on the internal single-path local squeezing operation

Abstract: Compared to passive interferometers, SU(1,1) interferometers exhibit superior phase sensitivity due to the incorporation of nonlinear elements that enhance their ability to detect phase shifts. However, the precision of these interferometers is significantly affected by photon losses, especially internal losses, which can limit the overall measurement accuracy. Addressing these issues is essential to fully realize the advantages of SU(1,1) interferometers in practical applications. Among the known resources of quantum metrology, one of the most practical and efficient is squeezing. We propose a theoretical scheme to improve the precision of phase measurement using homodyne detection by implementing the single-path local squeezing operation (LSO) inside the SU(1,1) interferometer, with the coherent state and the vacuum state as the input states. We not only analyze the effects of the single-path LSO scheme on the phase sensitivity and the quantum Fisher information (QFI) under both ideal and photon-loss cases but also compare the effects of different squeezing parameters r on the system performance. Our findings reveal that the internal single-path LSO scheme can enhance the phase sensitivity and the QFI, effectively improving the robustness of the SU(1,1) interferometer against internal and external photon losses. Additionally, a larger squeezing parameter r leads to a better performance of the interferometer.