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arXiv:1412.5700 · Physical Review A

Quantum dynamics of Kerr optical frequency combs below and above threshold: Spontaneous four-wave mixing, entanglement, and squeezed states of light

Yanne K. Chembo

Published Mar 10, 2016• 135 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

The dynamical behavior of Kerr optical frequency combs is very well understood today from the perspective of the semiclassical approximation. These combs are obtained by pumping an ultrahigh-$Q$ whispering-gallery mode resonator with a continuous-wave laser. The long-lifetime photons are trapped within the toruslike eigenmodes of the resonator, where they interact nonlinearly via the Kerr effect. In this article, we use quantum Langevin equations to provide a theoretical understanding of the nonclassical behavior of these combs when pumped below and above threshold. In the configuration where the system is under threshold, the pump field is the unique oscillating mode inside the resonator, and it triggers the phenomenon of spontaneous four-wave mixing, where two photons from the pump are symmetrically up- and down-converted in the Fourier domain. This phenomenon, also referred to as parametric fluorescence, can only be understood and analyzed from a fully quantum perspective as a consequence of the coupling between the field of the central (pumped) mode and the vacuum fluctuations of the various side modes. We analytically calculate the power spectra of the spontaneous emission noise, and we show that these spectra can be either single- or double-peaked depending on the value of the laser frequency, chromatic dispersion, pump power, and spectral distance between the central mode and the side mode of interest. We also calculate as well the overall spontaneous noise power per side mode and propose simplified analytical expressions for some particular cases. In the configuration where the system is pumped above threshold, we investigate the phenomena of quantum correlations and multimode squeezed states of light that can occur in the Kerr frequency combs originating from stimulated four-wave mixing. We show that for all stationary spatiotemporal patterns, the side modes that are symmetrical relative to the pumped mode in the frequency domain display quantum correlations that can lead to squeezed states of light under some optimal conditions that are analytically determined. These quantum correlations can persist regardless the dynamical state of the system (rolls or solitons), regardless of the spectral extension of the comb (number side modes) and regardless of the dispersion regime (normal or anomalous). We also explicitly determine the phase quadratures leading to photon entanglement and analytically calculate their quantum-noise spectra. For both the below- and above-threshold cases, we study with particular emphasis the two principal architectures for Kerr comb generation, namely the add-through and add-drop configurations. It is found that regardless of the configuration, an essential parameter is the ratio between out-coupling and total losses, which plays a key role as it directly determines the efficiency of the detected fluorescence or squeezing spectra. We finally discuss the relevance of Kerr combs for quantum information systems at optical telecommunication wavelengths below and above threshold.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.93.033820

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The dynamical behavior of Kerr optical frequency combs is very well understood today from the perspective of the semiclassical approximation. These combs are obtained by pumping an ultrahigh-QQQ whispering-gallery mode resonator with a continuous-wave laser. The long-lifetime photons are trapped within the toruslike eigenmodes of the resonator, where they interact nonlinearly via the Kerr effect. In this article, we use quantum Langevin equations to provide a theoretical understanding of the nonclassical behavior of these combs when pumped below and above threshold. In the configuration where the system is under threshold, the pump field is the unique oscillating mode inside the resonator, and it triggers the phenomenon of spontaneous four-wave mixing, where two photons from the pump are symmetrically up- and down-converted in the Fourier domain. This phenomenon, also referred to as parametric fluorescence, can only be understood and analyzed from a fully quantum perspective as a consequence of the coupling between the field of the central (pumped) mode and the vacuum fluctuations of the various side modes. We analytically calculate the power spectra of the spontaneous emission noise, and we show that these spectra can be either single- or double-peaked depending on the value of the laser frequency, chromatic dispersion, pump power, and spectral distance between the central mode and the side mode of interest. We also calculate as well the overall spontaneous noise power per side mode and propose simplified analytical expressions for some particular cases. In the configuration where the system is pumped above threshold, we investigate the phenomena of quantum correlations and multimode squeezed states of light that can occur in the Kerr frequency combs originating from stimulated four-wave mixing. We show that for all stationary spatiotemporal patterns, the side modes that are symmetrical relative to the pumped mode in the frequency domain display quantum correlations that can lead to squeezed states of light under some optimal conditions that are analytically determined. These quantum correlations can persist regardless the dynamical state of the system (rolls or solitons), regardless of the spectral extension of the comb (number side modes) and regardless of the dispersion regime (normal or anomalous). We also explicitly determine the phase quadratures leading to photon entanglement and analytically calculate their quantum-noise spectra. For both the below- and above-threshold cases, we study with particular emphasis the two principal architectures for Kerr comb generation, namely the add-through and add-drop configurations. It is found that regardless of the configuration, an essential parameter is the ratio between out-coupling and total losses, which plays a key role as it directly determines the efficiency of the detected fluorescence or squeezing spectra. We finally discuss the relevance of Kerr combs for quantum information systems at optical telecommunication wavelengths below and above threshold.
The dynamical behavior of Kerr optical frequency combs is very well understood today from the perspective of the semi-classical approximation. In this article, we provide a theoretical understanding of the phenomena of quantum correlations, multimode entanglement and squeezed states of light that can occur in these frequency combs when quantum noise is accounted for. We prove that for all stationary spatio-temporal patterns, the side-modes that are symmetrical relatively to the central (pumped) mode in the frequency domain display quantum correlations that can lead to squeezed states of light under some optimal conditions that are analytically determined. We show that these quantum correlations can persist regardless the dynamical state of the system (rolls or solitons), regardless of the spectral extension of the comb (number sidemodes), and regardless of the dispersion regime (normal or anomalous). We study with particular emphasis the two principal architectures for Kerr comb generation, namely the add-through and add-drop configurations. We show that in both cases, the ratio between out-coupling and total losses plays a key role as it directly determines the efficiency of the squeezing. We also explicitly determine the phase quadratures leading to photon entanglement, and analytically calculate their quantum noise spectra. The relevance of Kerr combs for quantum information systems at optical telecommunication wavelengths is also discussed.
Kerr optical frequency combs are obtained by pumping an ultra-high Q whispering-gallery mode resonator with a continuous-wave laser. Here, we use quantum Langevin equations to investigate the non-classical behavior of these combs when pumped below and above threshold. Under threshold, we study the phenomenon of spontaneous four-wave mixing, while above threshold, we investigate the phenomenon of two-mode squeezing. For both the below- and above-threshold cases, we find that an essential parameter is the ratio between out-coupling and total losses, which directly determines the efficiency of the detected spontaneous noise or squeezing spectra.
Quantum Kerr optical frequency combs are generated by pumping a high-Q microresonator with a continuous wave resonant laser. Below threshold, two pump photons are symmetrically up- and down-converted as twin photons via spontaneous four-wave mixing, thereby generating up to a hundred paired channels. Furthermore, these chipscale, high-dimensional and room-temperature systems are expected to play a major role in quantum engineering. However, their theoretical description is still unclear. Here, we present an explicit description of this quantum system via a frequency-bin state and its density operator, and explore the properties of the eigenkets.
Temporal cavity solitons generated in monochromatically driven dispersive Kerr resonators offer an attractive avenue for on-chip optical frequency comb generation. Key to many of their applications is to understand how noise -- both technical and quantum -- affects the soliton states, which has accordingly been extensively investigated. Here, we report on a comprehensive theoretical study that elucidates how technical and quantum fluctuations impact a new type of soliton structure that has very recently been predicted and observed in dispersive Kerr resonators under conditions of bichromatic driving: the pure-Kerr parametrically driven cavity soliton (PDCS). We examine how classical laser phase noise transfers from the two pump fields onto the soliton frequency comb, and we calculate the solitons' fundamental quantum-limited timing jitter and two-mode squeezing spectra. In each case, we find that PDCSs can out-perform conventional cavity solitons with comparable characteristics, even when driven by two uncorrelated lasers. Our results demonstrate that pure-Kerr PDCSs can offer unprecedented performance in noise-sensitive photonic applications and as a quantum resource
Kerr optical frequency combs are generated by pumping a high-QQQintegrated microresonator with a resonant laser. Below threshold, the pump laser field mediates the phenomenon of spontaneous four-wave mixing, where two pump photons are symmetrically up- and down-converted as twin photons that can be entangled across up to tens of eigenmodes in the spectral domain. While these room-temperature integrated photonic circuits are expected to play a central role in quantum technology, their high dimensionality and dissipative nature are a challenge for their theoretical description, therefore hindering the understanding of their properties and potential of performance. In this article, we develop a framework that permits to obtain an explicit solution for the density operator of quantum microcombs below threshold. This self-consistent theoretical description allows for their complete characterization, as well as for the analytical determination of various performance metrics such as fidelity, purity, and entropy.
Squeezing is a fundamental quantum optical phenomenon - induced by various nonlinear optical processes - in which a special state of the electromagnetic field is generated, for which quantum noise fluctuations are reduced below the shot noise level for certain frequency ranges. Two qualitatively different kinds of squeezing are currently known to take place in optical fibers. The first is the four-wave mixing (FWM) induced quadrature squeezing, in which an intense continuous wave (CW) pump initiates a spontaneous emission of signal and idler waves from vacuum fluctuations at symmetric detunings from the pump. The noise components at the signal and idler frequencies become correlated via the fiber nonlinearity, leading to a reduction of the noise power spectrum below the shot noise level. All the waves participating to the FWM-induced squeezing are monochromatic waves. The second kind of squeezing is the so called self-phase modulation (SPM) induced squeezing, in which the spectral components of an intense short pulse in a coherent state become correlated via the SPM during propagation. We demonstrate theoretically that a third kind of squeezing is possible in optical fibers, in which the noise spectrum of the quasi-monochromatic resonant radiation (RR) emitted by optical solitons when subject to perturbations shows evidence of photon correlation and a reduction of noise below the shot-noise level.