Coherent Amplifier-Empowered Quantum Interferometer: Preserving Sensitivity and Quantum Advantage under High Loss

Abstract: Quantum interferometers offer phase measurement capabilities that surpass the standard quantum limit (SQL), with phase sensitivity and quantum enhancement factor serving as key performance metrics. However, practical implementations face severe degradation of both metrics due to unavoidable losses, representing the foremost challenge in advancing quantum interferometry toward real-world applications. To address this challenge, we propose a coherent-amplifier-empowered quantum interferometer. The coherent amplifier dramatically suppresses the decay of both sensitivity and quantum enhancement under high-loss conditions, maintaining phase sensitivity beyond the original SQL even for losses exceeding 90%. Using an injected 4.2 dB squeezed-vacuum state in experimental demonstration, our scheme reduces the quantum enhancement degradation under 90% loss from 3.7 dB in a conventional quantum interferometer (CQI) to only 1.5 dB. More importantly, the phase sensitivity degradation under the same loss is limited to 4.0 dB, markedly outperforming the 11.2 dB degradation observed in a CQI. This improvement is enabled by the coherent amplifier's phase-sensitive photon amplification and its protection of the quantum state. This breakthrough in amplifier-empowered quantum interferometry overcomes the critical barrier to practical deployment, enabling robust quantum-enhanced measurements in lossy environments.