Optical Heterodyne Detection
Author: the photonics expert Dr. Rüdiger Paschotta (RP)
Bibliography
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(Suggest additional literature!)
Questions and Comments from Users
2021-07-12
Why do we need to frequency-shift the signal light for the phase measurement? Why can't we just look at the interference without that shift in the signal?
The author's answer:
Of course, there are other methods for optical phase measurements, which do not involve a frequency shift. However, the heterodyne method is just very convenient.
2024-07-23
Is it possible to do heterodyne detection of two beams of different wavelengths, at the shot noise limit for each beam, on the same photodetector, by having two LOs at the two wavelengths with different RF offsets? Shot noise is presented as having infinite bandwidth, which makes this problem of “double heterodyne detection” very confusing.
The author's answer:
I just think that it would probably not be convenient to have two heterodyne signals superimposed — how to separate them later, or how else to use that combination?
2024-07-29
Comment on the previous answer: Separating two heterodyne signals is easy with DSP/software defined radio, or just analog LC filters.
But answering my own initial question: my understanding is the shot noise of each beam will couple into the other, and if I want to measure the shot noise of each beam independently, they need to be separated in the optical domain — doing it post-detection is not possible.
The author's answer:
If the two signals need to be analyzed in overlapping frequency regions, I cannot see how to separate them. In particular, that applies to the broadband shot noise.
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