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Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics

Seeded parametric four-wave mixing for sensitive detection of atoms and molecules

Mark J. Fernée, P. F. Barker, Halina H. Rubinsztein-Dunlop, A.E.W. Knight

Published Nov 27, 2002• 0 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Summary form only given.A simple variant of parametric four-wave mixing (PFWM), which we call seeded parametric four-wave mixing (SPFWM), has been developed. This is a near-resonant nondegenerate four-wave mixing technique that offers distinct advantages over similar techniques as it only requires a single beam and is automatically phase matched. Furthermore, the signal is generated at a different wavelength to, but travels collinear with, the pump beam enabling efficient signal retrieval.

DOI
10.1109/iqec.1998.680312

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Summary form only given.A simple variant of parametric four-wave mixing (PFWM), which we call seeded parametric four-wave mixing (SPFWM), has been developed. This is a near-resonant nondegenerate four-wave mixing technique that offers distinct advantages over similar techniques as it only requires a single beam and is automatically phase matched. Furthermore, the signal is generated at a different wavelength to, but travels collinear with, the pump beam enabling efficient signal retrieval.
Two-photon resonant parametric four-wave mixing and a newly developed variant called seeded parametric four-wave mixing are used to detect trace quantities of sodium in a flame. Both techniques are simple, requiring only a single laser to generate a signal beam at a different wavelength which propagates collinearly with the pump beam, allowing efficient signal recovery. A comparison of the two techniques reveals that seeded parametric four-wave mixing is more than two orders of magnitude more sensitive than parametric four-wave mixing, with an estimated detection sensitivity of $5\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}{10}^{9}$ atoms/cm3{\mathrm{cm}}^{3}cm3. Seeded parametric four-wave mixing is achieved by cascading two parametric four-wave mixing media such that one of the parametric fields generated in the first high-density medium is then used to ``seed'' the same four-wave mixing process in a second medium in order to increase the four-wave mixing gain. The behavior of this seeded parametric four-wave mixing is described using semiclassical perturbation theory. A simplified small-signal theory is found to model most of the data satisfactorily. However, an anomalous saturationlike behavior is observed in the large signal regime. The full perturbation treatment, which includes the competition between two different four-wave mixing processes coupled via the signal field, accounts for this apparently anomalous behavior.
We demonstrate a new phase-matching geometry for four-wave mixing processes in hot Rb85 vapor, in which all four fields propagate in different directions but two of them are degenerate in frequency. When used as a parametric amplifier with an injected seed, two types of quantum mechanically correlated twin-beam states, either frequency degenerate or nondegenerate, can be generated. The quantum noise reduction in the intensity difference is almost 7 dB for the nondegenerate type and nearly 5 dB for the degenerate type. The spatial nondegeneracy of the four waves allows a variety of configurations of parametric processes, leading to flexible control for both phase insensitive and sensitive parametric amplification. The spatially nondegenerate but frequency degenerate four-wave mixing process will find wide applications in quantum metrology, quantum communication, and quantum information of continuous variables.
Nondegenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) in diamond-type atomic systems has important applications in a wide range of fields, including quantum entanglement generation, frequency conversion, and optical information processing. Although the efficient self-seeded nondegenerate FWM with amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) has been realized extensively, the seeded nondegenerate FWM without ASE is inefficient in reported experiments so far. Here we present the experimental realization of the seeded nondegenerate FWM in cesium atoms with a significantly improved efficiency. Specifically, with two pump lasers at 852 and 921 nm and a seed laser at 895 nm, a continuous-wave laser at 876 nm is efficiently generated via FWM in a cesium vapor cell with a power up to 1.2 mW, three orders of magnitude larger than what has been achieved in previous experiments. The improvement of the efficiency benefits from the exact satisfaction of the phase-matching condition realized by an elaborately designed setup. Our results may find applications in the generation of squeezing and entanglement of light via nondegenerate FWM.
The generation of entangled photons by spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC) or spontaneous four-wave mixing (SFWM) attracted enormous interest in the field of quantum optics. Depending on applications, entangled photon sources prioritize either bandwidth (e.g. for quantum imaging) or brightness (e.g. for quantum key distribution). Layered materials offer unique advantages for both. They have already been used to realize thinnest SPDC sources [1], which, like other layered materials such as transition-metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) [2], offer nearly unlimited bandwidth thanks to relaxed phase-matching constraints. Further, their easy integration on photonic platforms is promising for bright on-chip entangled photon sources. In this context, SPDC-based solutions are limited by phase-matching, whereas SFWM would be an almost phase-matching-free process, as pump, idler, and signal photons can be generated at similar wavelengths, thus propagating at the same group velocity in integrated devices. Moreover, exploiting excitonic resonances could enhance FWM even more. However, to date, experiments with resonant FWM in TMDs have been limited to signals in the visible [3], which is unsuitable for integrated photonics and telecom systems due to reabsorption during propagation in the photonic device.