Quantum-enhanced interferometry with unbalanced entangled coherent states

Abstract We propose a quantum-enhanced metrological scheme utilizing unbalanced entangled coherent states (ECSs) generated by passing a coherent state and a coherent state superposition through an unbalanced beam splitter (BS). We identify the optimal phase sensitivity of this scheme by maximizing the quantum Fisher information (QFI) with respect to the BS transmission ratio. Our scheme outperforms the conventional scheme with a balanced BS, particularly in the presence of single-mode photon loss. Notably, our scheme retains quantum advantage in phase sensitivity in the limit of high photon intensity, where the balanced scheme offers no advantage over the classical strategy.