line of atomic rubidium (795 nm) with a tunable, doubly-resonant, monolithic subthreshold optical parametric oscillator in periodically-poled Rb-doped potassium titanyl phosphate (ppRKTP). The squeezing appears to be undiminished by a strong dispersive optical nonlinearity recently observed in this material.
In this experiment we use periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) as the nonlinear crystal in an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for the generation of squeezed light on the D1 line of rubidium which lies at 795 nm. Although OPOs have long been used as sources of squeezed light, the shorter wavelengths required for atomic interactions have always been a challenge due to a limited choice of nonlinear crystals. PPKTP is a new material that has recently been shown to be highly effective over a very wide range of optical frequencies (Akamatsu, 2006).
A squeezed light source requires properties such as high squeezing amplitude, high bandwidth and stability over time, ideally using as few resources, such as laser power, as possible. We compare three nonlinear materials, two of which have not been well characterized for squeezed state production, and also investigate the viability of doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator cavities in achieving these requirements. A model is produced that provides a new way of looking at the construction of an optical parametric oscillator/optical parametric amplifier setup where second harmonic power is treated as a limited resource. The well-characterized periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) is compared in an essentially identical setup to two relatively new materials, periodically poled stoichiometric lithium tantalate (PPSLT) and 1.7% magnesium oxide doped periodically poled stoichiometric lithium niobate (PPSLN). Although from the literature PPSLT and PPSLN present advantages such as a higher damage threshold and a higher nonlinearity, respectively, PPKTP was still found to have the most desirable properties. With PPKTP, 5.8 dB of squeezing below the shot noise limit was achieved. With PPSLT, 5.0 dB of squeezing was observed but the power required to see this squeezing was much higher than expected. A technical problem with the PPSLN limited the observed squeezing to around 1.0 dB. This problem is discussed.
We demonstrate a nonlinear optical resonator that tunes itself onto resonance with an input beam. In a monolithic Fabry-Perot cavity implemented in rubidium-doped periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate, an intensity-dependent refractive index produces line pulling by multiple free-spectral ranges (FSRs). In this condition, the cavity passively maintains optical resonance in the face of FSR-scale excursions of the drive laser frequency: when one resonant operating point becomes unstable, the resonator rapidly transitions to another resonant operating point. We demonstrate stable second-harmonic generation with no active feedback to the laser or cavity. The self-tuning effect appears to be supported by a very strong, previously unreported optical nonlinearity.
We report the generation of a continuous-wave squeezed vacuum resonant on the Rb D1 line (795 nm) using periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) crystals. With a frequency doubler and an optical parametric oscillator based on PPKTP crystals, we observed a squeezing level of -2.75+/-0.14 dB and an antisqueezing level of +7.00+/-0.13 dB. This system could be utilized for demonstrating storage and retrieval of the squeezed vacuum, which is important for the ultraprecise measurement of atomic spins as well as quantum information processing.
We report on the generation of more than 5 dB of vacuum squeezed light at the Rubidium D1 line (795 nm) using periodically poled KTiOPO4 (PPKTP) in an optical parametric oscillator. We demonstrate squeezing at low sideband frequencies, making this source of non-classical light compatible with bandwidth limited atom optics experiments. When PPKTP is operated as a parametric amplifier, we show a noise reduction of 4 dB stably locked within the 150 kHz-500 kHz frequency range. This matches the bandwidth of Electromagnetically Induced Transparency (EIT) in Rubidium hot vapour cells under the condition of large information delay.