Heisenberg-limit interferometry with four-wave mixers operating in a nonlinear regime

A model of a four-wave mixer operated in a nonlinear regime, studied by Yurke and Stoler [Phys. Rev. A 35, 4846 (1987)], is reexamined. Yurke and Stoler have shown that this device, under a certain condition, acts as an even-odd filter, switching even-photon-number states from the pump mode to the signal mode. An initial coherent state in the pump is converted into an entanglement of even and odd coherent, states with vacuum states in the output signal and pump modes. We point out that under a different condition and with an even-photon-number state initially in the pump and a vacuum in the signal, the device creates a maximally entangled state between the number state and the vacuum. Using the device to replace the first beamsplitter of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer, phase uncertainties at the Heisenberg limit (Delta phi= 1/n) can be obtained. Since number states are difficult to generate, we point out that an even coherent state obtained from the output of one device can be used as input to a second to achieve the phase uncertainties Delta phi= 1/n(e), where n(e) is the average photon number of the even coherent state.