Quantum Radiometric Calibration

Abstract: Optical quantum computing, as well as quantum communication and sensing technology based on quantum correlations are in preparation. These require photodiodes for the detection of about 10^16 photons per second with close to perfect quantum efficiency. Already the radiometric calibration is a challenge. Here, we provide the theoretical description of the quantum radiometric calibration method. Its foundation is squeezed light and Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, making it an example of quantum metrology based on quantum correlations. Unlike all existing radiometric calibration methods, ours is in situ and provides both the detection efficiency and the more stringent quantum efficiency directly for the measurement frequencies of the user application. We calibrate a pair of the most efficient commercially available photodiode at 1550 nm to a system detection efficiency of (97.20 + 0.37)% using 10-dB-squeezed vacuum states. Our method has great potential for significantly higher precision and accuracy, but even with this measurement, we can clearly say that the available photodiode efficiencies for 1550 nm are unexpectedly low, too low for future gravitational wave detectors and for optical quantum computing.