Abstract

We measure small optical beam deflections both using a Sagnac interferometer with a monitored dark port (the weak-values-based technique), or by focusing the entire beam to a split detector (the standard technique). By introducing controlled external modulations we quantify the mitigation of these sources in the weak values-based experiment versus the standard focusing experiment. In all cases, the weak-values technique out performs the standard technique by up to two orders of magnitude in precision for our parameters. We also show by post-selecting on 1% of the photons, we obtain 99% of the available Fisher information.

© 2015 Optical Society of America