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Journal of Applied Physics

Spin noise amplification and giant noise in optical microcavity

I. I. Ryzhov, S. V. Poltavtsev, G. G. Kozlov, Alexey Vitalievich Kavokin, Pavlos G. Lagoudakis, Valerii S Zapasskii

Published Jun 11, 2015• 10 citations
Publisher

Abstract

When studying the spin-noise-induced fluctuations of Kerr rotation in a quantum-well microcavity, we have found a dramatic increase of the noise signal (by more than two orders of magnitude) in the vicinity of anti-crossing of the polariton branches. The effect is explained by nonlinear optical instability of the microcavity giving rise to the light-power-controlled amplification of the polarization noise signal. In the framework of the developed model of built-in amplifier, we also interpret the nontrivial spectral and intensity-related properties of the observed noise signal below the region of anti-crossing of polariton branches. The discovered effect of optically controllable amplification of broadband polarization signals in microcavities in the regime of optical instability may be of interest for detecting weak oscillations of optical anisotropy in fundamental research and for other applications in optical information processing.

DOI
10.1063/1.4922405

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When studying the spin-noise-induced fluctuations of Kerr rotation in a quantum-well microcavity, we have found a dramatic increase of the noise signal (by more than two orders of magnitude) in the vicinity of anti-crossing of the polariton branches. The effect is explained by nonlinear optical instability of the microcavity giving rise to the light-power-controlled amplification of the polarization noise signal. In the framework of the developed model of built-in amplifier, we also interpret the nontrivial spectral and intensity-related properties of the observed noise signal below the region of anti-crossing of polariton branches. The discovered effect of optically controllable amplification of broadband polarization signals in microcavities in the regime of optical instability may be of interest for detecting weak oscillations of optical anisotropy in fundamental research and for other applications in optical information processing.
Polaritons are quasiparticles resulting from the strong coupling between photons and excitons embedded in a semiconductor microcavity. The exciton component of polaritons provides strong nonlinear interactions, while their photonic counterpart facilitates long range coherence. Moreover, polaritons carry a pseudospin that can be accessed through the polarization state of the emitted light, and brings up spinor related nonlinear effects. This study aims at in-depth investigation of the noise related phenomena in polariton system. First, a series of experiments of polariton bistability and multistability are performed to deepen our knowledge about the effect of the biexciton creation and polariton-polariton interaction on multistable regimes in exciton polaritons. Then, using an external Gaussian noise, the polariton transition rate between two stable states of a polariton bistability is characterized. It is shown that the external noise specifications, intensity and correlation time, can efficiently modify the polariton Kramers time and residence time. We also discuss the performance of the bistable behaviour in steady state regime in terms of experimental acquisition time compared to the noise-assisted residence time. In the next part, taking advantage of polariton bistability and spin-trigger regime, we have evidenced two different types of stochastic resonance. Intensity stochastic resonance and spinor stochastic resonance. We have shown that the synergic interplay between intensity fluctuations and external modulated signal, imprinted on the DC component of the driving field, can enhance the coherent processing of an input signal buried in noise. Moreover, we evidence that, due to the exceptional spin properties of polaritons, a noisy modulated polarized input signal can drive the switching of a fully polarized polariton population. This effect unveils an original field of stochastic resonance which we called as spinor stochastic resonance. All experimental results are well reproduced by a model based on Gross-Pitaevskii equation. At the end, the influence of nonlinear interactions on polariton intensity fluctuations and probability distribution have been investigated.
Investigations of quantum effects in semiconductor quantum-well microcavities interacting with laser light in the strong-coupling regime are presented. Modifications of quantum fluctuations of the outgoing light are expected due to the non-linearity originating from coherent exciton–exciton scattering. In the strong-coupling regime, this scattering translates into a four-wave mixing interaction between the mixed exciton–photon states, the polaritons. Squeezing and giant amplification of the polariton field and of the outgoing light field fluctuations are predicted. However, polariton–phonon scattering is shown to yield excess noise in the output field, which may destroy the non-classical effects. Experiments demonstrate evidence for giant amplification due to coherent four-wave mixing of polaritons. Noise reduction below the thermal noise level was also observed.
We present the experimental observation of photon-photon interactions at the single-particle level. The linearly polarized signal beam undergoes Faraday rotation by a nonlinear effective magnetic field induced by a very weak circularly polarized control beam due to the giant Kerr-like interactions between exciton-polaritons in our quantum well-based 0D microcavity structures. We measure a phase shift with a slope of 3.5×10^-3 radians per particle for low cavity occupancies between 0.1 and 3 excited by the control beam. These experimental findings are in agreement with theoretical models and pave the way towards the development of scalable photonic quantum gates.
We attract attention to the fact that the ultimate (shot-noise-limited) polarimetric sensitivity can be enhanced by orders of magnitude leaving the photon flux incident onto the photodetector on the same low level. This opportunity is of crucial importance for present-day spin noise spectroscopy, where a direct increase of sensitivity by increasing the probe beam power is strongly restricted by the admissible input power of the broadband photodetectors. The gain in sensitivity is achieved by replacing the 45${}^{\ensuremath{\circ}}$ polarization geometry commonly used in conventional schemes with balanced detectors by geometries with stronger polarization extinction. The efficiency of these high-extinction polarization geometries with enhancement of the detected signal by more than an order of magnitude is demonstrated by measurements of the spin noise spectra of bulk nnn:GaAs in the spectral range 835--918 nm. It is shown that the inevitable growth of the probe beam power with the sensitivity gain makes spin noise spectroscopy much more perturbative, but, at the same time, opens up fresh opportunities for studying nonlinear interactions of strong light fields with spin ensembles.
Introduction Most of the lightwave transmission systems operating today benefit fully from extensive deployment of optical amplifiers (OA). These components perform the amplification of optical intensity directly in the optical domain, without resorting to any electrical-domain regeneration. Optical amplifiers increase the average number of output photons per unit time by several orders of magnitude compared with the incoming signal intensity. However, as with every amplifying process, optical amplification cannot be achieved without paying back for the unavoidable noise power added to the signal intensity. As we will see in detail in Chapter 6, the optical amplification process comes with optical noise generated by spontaneous emission inside the active medium. The intensity of the optical signal is represented by the flux of the signal photon population. Conversely, the photons generated by the spontaneous emission process inside the optical cavity represent the noise photon population. The fundamental phenomenon supporting optical amplification is stimulated emission. The basic property of stimulated emission, making the great difference from spontaneous emission and enabling optical amplification, is the coherent nature of the photon generation process. Accordingly, both signal and noise photons go through the same multiplication process by means of stimulated emission. Unless the optical cavity where the stimulated emission takes place (the active cavity) presents selective features for enhancing the signal photon population relative to the spontaneous one, there is no way to avoid noise photons going through stimulated emission, filling most of the cavity population. As a consequence, both photon populations increase, leading respectively to amplified signal intensity and to amplified spontaneous emission intensity. It should be apparent that every noise photon can create a new identical noise photon as a result of stimulated emission, effectively increasing the noise intensity in the active optical cavity. This is the well-known mechanism of amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) noise in optical amplification. Any improvement in the optical amplifier structure devoted to increasing stimulated over spontaneous emission will probably increase the optical signal-to-noise ratio (OSNR) at the cavity output. The spectrum of gain characteristic of the optical active medium is usually wide enough to support an efficient amplification of the broadband spontaneous emission spectrum, leading to the broadband ASE noise power spectral density.
Noise plays a very important role in synchronously pumped optical parametric oscillators (SPOPOs). For example, these devices have been suggested as tunable source of short pulses. However, it was shown that in the pulse compression regime the signal pulses may suffer from considerable noise-induced jitter. In the context of quantum optics, optical parametric oscillators have been suggested as a tool to amplify and detect quantum fluctuations. However, this requires very large amplification factors.