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Physical Review Letters

Observation of Squeezed States Generated by Four-Wave Mixing in an Optical Cavity

R. E. Slusher, Leo W. Hollberg, Bernard Yurke, Jerome C. Mertz, J. F. Valley

Published Nov 25, 1985• 1,907 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Squeezed states of the electromagnetic field have been generated by nondegenerate four-wave mixing due to Na atoms in an optical cavity. The optical noise in the cavity, comprised of primarily vacuum fluctuations and a small component of spontaneous emission from the pumped Na atoms, is amplified in one quadrature of the optical field and deamplified in the other quadrature. These quadrature components are measured with a balanced homodyne detector. The total noise level in the deamplified quadrature drops below the vacuum noise level.

DOI
10.1103/physrevlett.55.2409

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Squeezed states of the electromagnetic field have been generated by nondegenerate four-wave mixing due to Na atoms in an optical cavity. The optical noise in the cavity, comprised of primarily vacuum fluctuations and a small component of spontaneous emission from the pumped Na atoms, is amplified in one quadrature of the optical field and deamplified in the other quadrature. These quadrature components are measured with a balanced homodyne detector. The total noise level in the deamplified quadrature drops below the vacuum noise level.
Squeezed states of the electromagnetic field have been generated by nondegenerate four-wave mixing due to Na atoms in an optical cavity. The optical noise in the cavity, comprised of primarily vacuum fluctuations and a small component of spontaneous emission from the pumped Na atoms, is amplified in one quadrature of the optical field and deamplified in the other quadrature. These quadrature components are measured with a balanced homodyne detector. The total noise level in the deamplified quadrature drops below the vacuum noise level.
Squeezed states of light have been predicted to be generated by four-wave mixing in cavity configurations. Any noise fields in the cavity can degrade or modify these squeezed states. An experiment using a Na atomic beam as the nonlinear mixing medium shows that spontaneous emission from the excited atoms results in a broadband frequency spectrum of noise in the cavity used for squeezing. The limits this noise places on the observed amount of squeezing and possible techniques for avoiding this noise source are discussed.
Phase dependent nonlinear optical processes can make large fractional changes in the phase and amplitude of an optical field. An example is the prediction(1) that four-wave-mixing can generate squeezed states of an optical field where the variance in the two quadratures of the field are unequal. In order to observe squeezed states and utilize them in interferometric measurements this inequality in variances must be large (e.g. ≳ 50%). The large phase shifts required to achieve this regime of squeezing can be obtained near the threshold for oscillation of four-wave-mixing in an optical cavity. (2) This paper describes an experimental study(3) of four-wave-mixing in a cavity near threshold using the nonlinear index of the Na atomic resonance.
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.