 Optical heterodyne detection

Optical heterodyne detection combines a signal field with a reference field at a different frequency, producing an electrical beat within a receiver's bandwidth. The reference is a local oscillator. A photodetector responds to the squared sum of the fields; averaging over optical carrier cycles removes the fast sum-frequency term but can retain the difference-frequency interference.

For constant powers $P_s,P_{\mathrm{LO}}$ incident on a linear detector of responsivity $R$, a useful model isThe mode-overlap factor in optical heterodyne detection satisfies $|\gamma |\le 1$ and includes spatial and polarization matching. The beat frequency is $|{\nu }_s-{\nu }_{\mathrm{LO}}|$, while its phase carries a relative optical wave phase. Orthogonal polarizations can give $\gamma =0$ and no beat despite nonzero power from both sources.

For an original chosen $P_s=1\mathrm{nW}$, $P_{\mathrm{LO}}=1\mathrm{mW}$, $R=0.50A/W$ and $|\gamma |=1$, the beat's peak current is $1.0\mu \mathrm{A}$. The signal alone produces only $0.50\mathrm{nA}$ of current, but the mixed DC level is about $0.50\mathrm{mA}$. A chosen frequency difference of $10\mathrm{MHz}$ is measurable electronically even though each carrier has an optical frequency. Increasing the reference also increases its noise and can overload the receiver; beat amplitude is not an unlimited sensitivity gain.

NIST's physical receiver-characterization experiment combined an external-cavity semiconductor laser and a Nd:YAG laser near $1319\mathrm{nm}$. Variable attenuators, a beam splitter, a polarizer and single-mode fibre controlled the powers and matched the modes before the receiver. Sweeping the optical frequency difference generated a tunable test modulation.^[ref]

The receiver must pass the beat frequency and preserve the intended overlap. A single real beat frequency supplies the magnitude of the frequency difference; identifying which optical frequency is higher needs additional information. At zero difference, the corresponding fixed-phase measurement is optical homodyne detection.