Enhancing the precision of a measurement requires maximizing the information that can be gained about the quantity of interest from probing a system. For optical-based measurements, such an enhancement can be achieved through two approaches, increasing the number of photons used to interrogate the system and using quantum states of light to increase the amount of quantum Fisher information gained per photon. Here we consider the use of quantum states of light with a large number of photons, namely the bright single-mode squeezed state and the bright two-mode squeezed state, which take advantage of both of these approaches for the problem of transmission estimation. We show that, in the limit of large squeezing, these states approach the maximum possible quantum Fisher information per photon for transmission estimation that is achieved with the Fock state and the vacuum two-mode squeezed state. Since the bright states we consider can be generated at powers much higher than those of the quantum states that achieve the maximum quantum Fisher information per photon, they can achieve a much higher absolute precision as quantified by the quantum Cramér-Rao bound. We discuss the effects of losses external to the system on the precision of transmission estimation and identify simple measurement techniques that can saturate the quantum Cramér-Rao bound for the bright squeezed states even in the presence of such external losses.

• Received 27 August 2020
• Accepted 8 October 2020

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.102.052603