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arXiv:2501.02405 · Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Sub-Poissonian light in a waveguide Kerr medium

Ranjit Singh, Alexander Evgen’evich Teretenkov, Anatoly Viktorovich Masalov

Published Aug 18, 2025• 3 citations
arXivHTMLPDF

Abstract

Waveguides on a chip represent a new medium for implementing nonlinear optical transformations of light. Modern Si 3 N 4 chip waveguides are attractive due to their high Kerr nonlinearity, suppressed Brillouin scattering on guided acoustic waves (GAWBS), and lengths up to 1 m. The capabilities of waveguides for generating sub-Poissonian light in the form of a displaced Kerr state are analyzed. We offer new analytical formulas, to the best of our knowledge, for estimating the capabilities of suppressing photon fluctuations of a displaced Kerr state for any value of input light amplitude. The results of numerical calculations are presented. It is shown that the degree of photon noise suppression can reach values of 5–15 dB with 100 mW light power in waveguides a few meters long.

DOI
10.1364/josab.571990

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Waveguides on a chip represent a new medium for implementing nonlinear optical transformations of light. Modern Si 3 N 4 chip waveguides are attractive due to their high Kerr nonlinearity, suppressed Brillouin scattering on guided acoustic waves (GAWBS), and lengths up to 1 m. The capabilities of waveguides for generating sub-Poissonian light in the form of a displaced Kerr state are analyzed. We offer new analytical formulas, to the best of our knowledge, for estimating the capabilities of suppressing photon fluctuations of a displaced Kerr state for any value of input light amplitude. The results of numerical calculations are presented. It is shown that the degree of photon noise suppression can reach values of 5–15 dB with 100 mW light power in waveguides a few meters long.
Nonclassical states of light, such as number-squeezed light, with fluctuations below the classical shot noise level, have important uses in metrology, communication, quantum information processing, and quantum simulation. However, generating these nonclassical states of light, especially with high intensity and a high degree of squeezing, is challenging. To address this problem, we introduce a new concept which uses gain to generate intense sub-Poissonian light at optical frequencies. It exploits a strongly nonlinear gain for photons which arises from a combination of frequency-dependent gain and Kerr nonlinearity. In this laser architecture, the interaction between the gain medium and Kerr nonlinearity suppresses the spontaneous emission at high photon number states, leading to a strong "negative feedback" that suppresses photon-number fluctuations. We discuss realistic implementations of this concept based on the use of solid-state gain media in laser cavities with Kerr nonlinear materials, showing how 90% squeezing of photon number fluctuations below the shot noise level can be realized.
Optical parametric process occurring in a nonlinear planar waveguide can serve as a source of light with nonclassical properties. Properties of the generated fields are substantially modified by scattering of the nonlinearly interacting fields in a photonic band-gap structure inside the waveguide. A quantum model of linear operator amplitude corrections to amplitude mean-values provides conditions for an efficient squeezed-light generation as well as generation of light with sub-Poissonian photon-number statistics. Destructive influence of phase mismatch of the nonlinear interaction can fully be compensated using a suitable photonic-band gap structure inside the waveguide. Also an increase of signal-to-noise ratio of an incident optical field can be reached in the waveguide.
Optical parametric process occurring in a nonlinear planar waveguide can serve as a source of light with nonclassical properties. The properties of the generated fields are substantially modified by scattering of the nonlinearly interacting fields in a photonic-band-gap structure inside the waveguide. A general quantum model of linear operator amplitude corrections to the amplitude mean values and its numerical analysis provide conditions for efficient squeezed-light generation as well as generation of light with sub-Poissonian photon-number statistics. The destructive influence of phase mismatch of the nonlinear interaction can fully be compensated using a suitable photonic-band-gap structure inside the waveguide. Also an increase of the signal-to-noise ratio of the incident optical field can be reached in the waveguide.
The importance of optical signal processing techniques is growing rapidly in recent years due to the exponentially increasing demand for bandwidth, capacity and power efficiency in communications and computing. However, due to their bosonic nature photons do not interact with each other, unless there is a nonlinear medium mediating the interaction. One of the strongest nonlinear effects is the interaction of light waves, photons, with sound-waves, acoustic phonons, which is known as stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS). This thesis experimentally investigates SBS in photonic chips. It is shown in this thesis that the fundamental interaction strength between light and sound waves can be tailored by using one-dimensional photonic bandgap structures, completely suppressing the effect or alternatively enhancing the interaction to form phase-locked Brillouin frequency combs. It was shown furthermore that efficiently generating SBS on-chip enables the generation of stable RF signals that are widely tunable in frequency. Finally, it is shown in this thesis that SBS enables the storage of light signals on a chip, one of the holy grails of all-optical signal processing. Delaying optical signals is of key importance in optical networks to enable synchronization, buffering, and rerouting. SBS enables large delays by resonantly transferring an optical signal to an acoustic wave, that travels five orders of magnitude slower and retrieving it after a certain storage time. It is demonstrated in this thesis that a Brillouin-based memory (BBM) technique allows storing amplitude and phase of optical data pulses and operate at multiple wavelengths with minimal cross-talk. Replenishing of the acoustic wave to overcome storage time limitations imposed by the lifetime of the acoustic wave as well as non-reciprocal light storage is also shown.
Images formed by light with suppressed photon fluctuations are interesting objects for studies with the aim of increasing their limiting information capacity and quality. This light in the sub-Poisson state can be prepared in a resonator filled with a medium with Kerr nonlinearity, in which self-phase modulation takes place. Spatially and temporally multimode light beams are studied and the production of spatial frequency spectra of suppressed photon fluctuations is described. The efficient operation regimes of the system are found. A particular schematic solution is described, which allows one to realize the potential possibilities laid in the formation of the squeezed states of light to a maximum degree during self-phase modulation in a resonator for the maximal suppression of amplitude quantum noises upon two-dimensional imaging. The efficiency of using light with suppressed quantum fluctuations for computer image processing is studied. An algorithm is described for interpreting measurements for increasing the resolution with respect to the geometrical resolution. A mathematical model that characterizes the measurement scheme is constructed and the problem of the image reconstruction is solved. The algorithm for the interpretation of images is verified. Conditions are found for the efficient application of sub-Poisson light for super-resolution imaging. It is found that the image should have a low contrast and be maximally transparent.
We analyze the quantum statistical properties of light scattered by an acousto-optic modulator. From the perspective of quantum mechanics, the acousto-optic effect arises from a nonlinear interaction between three bosonic fields: the laser light, the Brillouin-scattered light, and an acoustic wave. The Hamiltonian coincides with that of sum-frequency generation, where the sum-frequency mode is known to exhibit sub-Poissonian statistics. We calculate the free temporal evolution of the Fano factor for Brillouin backscattered light and determine that sub-Poissonian statistics are obtained when faint laser light is scattered by a counter-propagating coherent acoustic wave with low average phonon number. The use of sub-Poissonian light would lead to an increase of the security for quantum key distribution.