Quantifying Effective Heterodyne Detection Efficiency with SI-Traceable Standards
Summarize this article with:
Quantum Physics arXiv:2602.20301 (quant-ph) [Submitted on 23 Feb 2026] Title:Quantifying Effective Heterodyne Detection Efficiency with SI-Traceable Standards Authors:Luiz Couto Correa Pinto Filho, Jesper B. Christensen, Anders Brusch, Mikael Lassen View a PDF of the paper titled Quantifying Effective Heterodyne Detection Efficiency with SI-Traceable Standards, by Luiz Couto Correa Pinto Filho and 2 other authors View PDF HTML (experimental) Abstract:Accurate calibration of coherent optical receivers is essential for reliable performance assessment in coherent communications, precision and quantum sensing, and continuous-variable quantum key distribution (CV-QKD), where the effective detection efficiency directly impacts channel parameter estimation. We present a methodology traceable to the International System of Units (SI) to determine the effective heterodyne detection efficiency of balanced receivers using shot-noise-referenced measurements. The protocol relies on two observables acquired with an electrical spectrum analyzer: the heterodyne beat-note power and the local oscillator shot-noise variance, with explicit treatment of the analyzer's equivalent noise bandwidth (ENBW). The photon flux in the signal path is referenced to SI units via calibrated radiometric standards. We first validate the protocol on a free-space receiver, demonstrating consistency with an independently constructed optical loss chain across a wide range of signal powers and under controlled, calibrated attenuation. Extending the same estimator to a fiber-coupled, polarization-maintaining balanced receiver confirms that the protocol is robust for practical coherent-receiver architectures and intermediate frequencies in the MHz range. These results establish a traceable, uncertainty-bounded framework for real-time receiver calibration, providing a practical route for CV-QKD and other coherent optical systems. Comments: Subjects: Quantum Physics (quant-ph) Cite as: arXiv:2602.20301 [quant-ph] (or arXiv:2602.20301v1 [quant-ph] for this version) https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2602.20301 Focus to learn more arXiv-issued DOI via DataCite (pending registration) Submission history From: Luiz Couto Correa Pinto Filho [view email] [v1] Mon, 23 Feb 2026 19:30:42 UTC (1,515 KB) Full-text links: Access Paper: View a PDF of the paper titled Quantifying Effective Heterodyne Detection Efficiency with SI-Traceable Standards, by Luiz Couto Correa Pinto Filho and 2 other authorsView PDFHTML (experimental)TeX Source view license Current browse context: quant-ph new | recent | 2026-02 References & Citations INSPIRE HEP NASA ADSGoogle Scholar Semantic Scholar export BibTeX citation Loading... BibTeX formatted citation × loading... Data provided by: Bookmark Bibliographic Tools Bibliographic and Citation Tools Bibliographic Explorer Toggle Bibliographic Explorer (What is the Explorer?) Connected Papers Toggle Connected Papers (What is Connected Papers?) Litmaps Toggle Litmaps (What is Litmaps?) scite.ai Toggle scite Smart Citations (What are Smart Citations?) Code, Data, Media Code, Data and Media Associated with this Article alphaXiv Toggle alphaXiv (What is alphaXiv?) Links to Code Toggle CatalyzeX Code Finder for Papers (What is CatalyzeX?) DagsHub Toggle DagsHub (What is DagsHub?) GotitPub Toggle Gotit.pub (What is GotitPub?) Huggingface Toggle Hugging Face (What is Huggingface?) Links to Code Toggle Papers with Code (What is Papers with Code?) ScienceCast Toggle ScienceCast (What is ScienceCast?) Demos Demos Replicate Toggle Replicate (What is Replicate?) Spaces Toggle Hugging Face Spaces (What is Spaces?) Spaces Toggle TXYZ.AI (What is TXYZ.AI?) Related Papers Recommenders and Search Tools Link to Influence Flower Influence Flower (What are Influence Flowers?) Core recommender toggle CORE Recommender (What is CORE?) Author Venue Institution Topic About arXivLabs arXivLabs: experimental projects with community collaborators arXivLabs is a framework that allows collaborators to develop and share new arXiv features directly on our website. Both individuals and organizations that work with arXivLabs have embraced and accepted our values of openness, community, excellence, and user data privacy. arXiv is committed to these values and only works with partners that adhere to them. Have an idea for a project that will add value for arXiv's community? Learn more about arXivLabs. Which authors of this paper are endorsers? | Disable MathJax (What is MathJax?)