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Optics Letters

Scheme for realizing a photon number amplifier

Seng‐Tiong Ho, Horace P. Yuen

Published Jan 1, 1994• 7 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A scheme for realizing a photon number amplifier by use of a high-quantum-efficiency photodetector and a number-state semiconductor laser is analyzed. It is found that the photon number amplifier is not significantly limited by the electronic amplifier noise or by the laser quantum efficiency for input states that are nearly classical.
DOI
10.1364/ol.19.000061

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Two configurations involving high quantum efficiency photodetectors and light emitting diodes have been investigated. A light beam was detected with a photodetector and its photocurrent was used to measure the incoming beam. Simultaneously, the photocurrent was used, with and without amplification, to regenerate the absorbed beam. With these schemes photon number amplification, duplication, and information tapping without introducing any significant noise to the downstream propagating beam could be experimentally realized.
The properties of a photon number amplifier and quantum-optical tap have been experimentally investigated. The device consists of a high-quantum-efficiency photodetector that drives eight series-coupled light emitters. The light from the series-coupled emitters is detected by parallel coupled photodetectors, which drive a new light emitter. It is shown that the light reaching the first photodetector can be measured, amplified by the series-coupled emitters, and regenerated by means of the last emitter without the introduction of significant noise. Hence the input light can be quantum correlated with the amplified photocurrent as well as with the output light.
A near-number state features strongly sub-Poissonian photon-number fluctuation and, unlike a quadrature squeezed state, the photonnumber noise can approach zero, with a finite average photon number. It is now well established that a beam with a sub-Poissonian photon-number fluctuation can be generated directly from a semiconductor laser,l,2 The basic physical processes are a) quantum mechanical interference between the transmitted internal field and the reflected vacuum field at the output coupler and b) high impedance suppression of the pump noise.
We show that detection of single photons is not subject to the fundamental limitations that accompany quantum linear amplification of bosonic mode amplitudes, even though a photodetector does amplify a few-photon input signal to a macroscopic output signal. Alternative limits are derived for nonlinear photon-number amplification with optimistic implications for single-photon detection. Our description makes clear that nonlinear amplification takes place, in general, at a different frequency ω′\omega'ω′ than the frequency ω\omegaω of the input photons, which can be exploited to suppress thermal noise even further. A practical example that fits our description very well is electron shelving.
We show that detection of single photons is not subject to the fundamental limitations that accompany quantum linear amplification of bosonic mode amplitudes, even though a photodetector does amplify a few-photon input signal to a macroscopic output signal. Alternative limits are derived for nonlinear photon-number amplification schemes with optimistic implications for single-photon detection. Four commutator-preserving transformations are presented: one idealized (which is optimal) and three more realistic (less than optimal). Our description makes clear that nonlinear amplification takes place, in general, at a different frequency ω' than the frequency ω of the input photons. This can be exploited to suppress thermal noise and dark counts past what is possible with linear amplification up to a fundamental limit imposed by nonlinear amplification into a single bosonic mode.