Sensitive sensing based on quantum correlation of photons in weak nonlinear regime

doi:10.1088/1674-1056/ae5c71

Abstract Quantum correlation of photons based on quantum interference, such as unconventional photon blockade (UPB), has been extensively studied for realizing single-photon sources in a weak nonlinear regime. However, how to use this effect for other practical applications is rarely studied. Here, we propose to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing based on the quantum correlation of photons induced by quantum interference. We demonstrate that UPB can be observed in the mixing field output from a Mach—Zehnder interferometer (MZI) with two cavities in its two arms based on quantum interference. We show that the second-order correlation function of the output field is sensitive to the parameters of the system, and propose schemes to realize angular velocity and temperature sensing by measuring the second-order correlation of the photons output from the MZI. We find that the second-order correlation function of the output field is much more sensitive to the parameters of the system than the mean photon number, which provides an application scenario for UPB in sensitive sensing.

Keywords: unconventional photon blockade gyroscope temperature sensing Mach—Zehnder interferometer

Received: 18 December 2025
Revised: 25 February 2026
Accepted manuscript online: 08 April 2026

PACS:	42.50.-p	(Quantum optics)
	42.50.Ar
	42.65.-k	(Nonlinear optics)

Fund: This work is supported by Quantum Science and Technology - National Science and Technology Major Project of China (Grant No. 2024ZD0301000), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 12064010, 12247105, 11935006, and 12421005), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2024YFE0102400), and Hunan Provincial Major Sci-Tech Program (Grant No. 2023ZJ1010).

Corresponding Authors: Xun-Wei Xu
E-mail: xwxu@hunnu.edu.cn

Cite this article:

Zi-Qiang Yin(尹子强), Zhi-Hao Liu(刘志豪), Jian Tang(唐健), Hui Jing(景辉), and Xun-Wei Xu(徐勋卫) Sensitive sensing based on quantum correlation of photons in weak nonlinear regime 2026 Chin. Phys. B 35 074201

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