We demonstrate a high-performance acousto-optic modulator-based bi-frequency interferometer, which can realize either beating or beating free interference for a single-photon level quantum state. Visibility and optical efficiency of the interferometer are (99.5±0.2)% and (95±1)%, respectively. The phase of the interferometer is actively stabilized by using a dithering phase-locking scheme, where the phase dithering is realized by directly driving the acousto-optic modulators with a specially designed electronic signal. We further demonstrate applications of the interferometer in quantum technology, including bi-frequency coherent combination, frequency tuning, and optical switching. These results show the interferometer is a versatile device for multiple quantum technologies.

Using the quantum interference of photon pairs in N-stage nonlinear interferometers (NLIs), the contour of the joint spectral function can be modified into an islands pattern. We perform two series of experiments. One is that all of the nonlinear fibers in pulse pumped NLIs are identical; the other is that the lengths of N pieces of nonlinear fibers are different. We not only demonstrate how the pattern of spectral function changes with the stage number N, but also characterize how the relative intensity of island peaks varies with N. The results well agree with theoretical predictions, revealing that the NLI with lengths of N pieces of nonlinear fibers following binomial distribution can provide a better active filtering function. Our investigation shows that the active filtering effect of multi-stage NLI is a useful tool for efficiently engineering the factorable two-photon state—a desirable resource for quantum information processing.

Using the few-mode erbium-doped fiber (FM-EDF) with a simple two-layer erbium-doped structure, we demonstrate an all-fiber FM-EDF amplifier. The gain equalization among the six spatial modes supported by the FM-EDF is achieved when only the pump in the fundamental mode (LP₀₁) is applied. When the signals in six spatial modes are simultaneously amplified, the average modal gain is about 15 dB, and differential modal gain is about 2.5 dB for the signal at 1550 nm.