Two schemes of four-wave mixing oscillators with nondegenerate pumps are proposed for above-threehold generation of squeezed light with nonzero mean-field amplitudes. Noise and correlation properties and optical spectra of squeezed-light beams generated in these schemes are discussed.
A scheme is proposed, in which the pulse train of squeezed light is generated via forward four-wave mixing through a nonlinear medium with third-order polarizability, coherently pumped by a train of pulses of modelocked laser. One of the quadrature noise compoments of the squeezed light is measured with a balanced homodyne detector using a pulse train as the local oscillation. The theoretical results show that the fairly high-intensity output of squeezed light can be achieved, and the noise-power spectrum of the light is almost completely squeezed and exhibits the form of a train of pulses, but the shape of squeezed spectrum is reversed with respect to that of the pulse train of the input light.
A squeezed state of the electromagnetic field has less noise in one of its two amplitude components than that of a coherent state. This property makes squeezed states potentially useful in low noise and precision measurement. Squeezed states may be generated by, among other things, degenerate parametric amplifiers and four-wave mixers. The reduced noise in one of the amplitude components is most easily observed via a homodyne detector. A number of experimental efforts to generate and detect squeezed states are under way. Here, in describing experimental techniques, the experiments' carried out by Slusher et al. are emphasized. A number of techniques were employed to successfully generate squeezed light. An atomic beam of sodium provided the optical nonlinearity in a cavity-backward four-wave mixer. By employing pairs of Fabry-Perot modes spaced symmetrically about the pump frequency, squeezed light was generated in nondegenerate conditions where Rayleigh scattering of pump light could be avoided. To observe squeezing, a number of nonidealities such as phase jitter and detector inefficiencies also had to be overcome.
The four-wave-mixing interactions produced by pumping at two well-separated frequencies can couple four different radiation modes to generate a new kind of squeezed state of light. A dual-frequency homodyne detection scheme is described and is used to observe this type of nonclassical correlation. Initial experimental results in an optical fiber show a noise level 20% below the vacuum noise level for the output of the dual-frequency detector, even though the noise at each individual detector remains above the vacuum level.
We show that an optomechanical cavity pumped by a bichromatic light beam can generate a signal whose frequency lies halfway between the two driving frequencies. This process can be understood as a degenerate four-wave mixing, in which two pump photons (one from each frequency) are combined to yield two identical signal photons. This process takes place between a lower and an upper threshold in terms of the pump intensity, which depend on the pump frequency difference. Close to the signal oscillation threshold a clear noise reduction in one of its quadratures is shown numerically.