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Journal of Physics B Atomic Molecular and Optical Physics

An investigation of doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillators and nonlinear crystals for squeezing

Michael Stefszky, Conor M Mow-Lowry, Kirk McKenzie, S. Chua, B. C. Buchler, Thomas Symul, David E. McClelland, Ping Koy Lam

Published Dec 16, 2010• 25 citations
Publisher

Abstract

A squeezed light source requires properties such as high squeezing amplitude, high bandwidth and stability over time, ideally using as few resources, such as laser power, as possible. We compare three nonlinear materials, two of which have not been well characterized for squeezed state production, and also investigate the viability of doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator cavities in achieving these requirements. A model is produced that provides a new way of looking at the construction of an optical parametric oscillator/optical parametric amplifier setup where second harmonic power is treated as a limited resource. The well-characterized periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) is compared in an essentially identical setup to two relatively new materials, periodically poled stoichiometric lithium tantalate (PPSLT) and 1.7% magnesium oxide doped periodically poled stoichiometric lithium niobate (PPSLN). Although from the literature PPSLT and PPSLN present advantages such as a higher damage threshold and a higher nonlinearity, respectively, PPKTP was still found to have the most desirable properties. With PPKTP, 5.8 dB of squeezing below the shot noise limit was achieved. With PPSLT, 5.0 dB of squeezing was observed but the power required to see this squeezing was much higher than expected. A technical problem with the PPSLN limited the observed squeezing to around 1.0 dB. This problem is discussed.

DOI
10.1088/0953-4075/44/1/015502

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A squeezed light source requires properties such as high squeezing amplitude, high bandwidth and stability over time, ideally using as few resources, such as laser power, as possible. We compare three nonlinear materials, two of which have not been well characterized for squeezed state production, and also investigate the viability of doubly-resonant optical parametric oscillator cavities in achieving these requirements. A model is produced that provides a new way of looking at the construction of an optical parametric oscillator/optical parametric amplifier setup where second harmonic power is treated as a limited resource. The well-characterized periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) is compared in an essentially identical setup to two relatively new materials, periodically poled stoichiometric lithium tantalate (PPSLT) and 1.7% magnesium oxide doped periodically poled stoichiometric lithium niobate (PPSLN). Although from the literature PPSLT and PPSLN present advantages such as a higher damage threshold and a higher nonlinearity, respectively, PPKTP was still found to have the most desirable properties. With PPKTP, 5.8 dB of squeezing below the shot noise limit was achieved. With PPSLT, 5.0 dB of squeezing was observed but the power required to see this squeezing was much higher than expected. A technical problem with the PPSLN limited the observed squeezing to around 1.0 dB. This problem is discussed.
Useful applications for squeezed states of light have been theorized for decades, however, only recently have advancements in the technology allowed for experimental investigations into applications of squeezed light. Most experiments which involve squeezing could be benefited by having a squeezing source which produces stable, highly squeezed states. This thesis investigates the generation of squeezed states of light which exhibit these properties, stability and high levels of squeezing. The key investigations are; • Initially a model is produced which estimates the expected level of squeezing in a singly or doubly resonant cavity. The properties of the cavity are altered by varying the reflectivity of one of the cavity mirrors for either the pump or seed frequencies. The effects of increasing pump power and introducing additional losses into the cavity are investigated as well as the optimum resonance conditions for maximum squeezing. • Built 3 squeezers with 3 different nonlinear mediums. A maximum squeezing value was found for each of the crystals and any effects which degraded or improved the results were investigated. Using PPKTP 5.8±0.1dB of squeezing was directly observed. Using PPSLT 4.9±0.1dB of squeezing was directly observed. PPSLT was found to have an unusually high threshold power, indicating that the crystal may have had a nonlinear coefficient much lower than expected. Using 1.7% MgO:PPSLN 1.1±0.2dB of squeezing was observed. The poor squeezing results were due to an anomaly in the material which affected its reflectivity and is investigated in the thesis. • The intra-cavity loss introduced to the system through the addition of each of the crystals was inferred from measurements of the cavity finesse, and the effect of this loss is explored. • Demonstrated the usefulness of a wedge in periodically poled materials to reach the optimum resonance condition in the squeezing setup. It is shown that the wedge is capable of cancelling the dispersion introduced in a round trip of the cavity, with no discernible negative effects. These investigations are used to comment on the suitability of each of these crystals for future experiments involving squeezing and possible modifications to improve the results.
In this experiment we use periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) as the nonlinear crystal in an optical parametric oscillator (OPO) for the generation of squeezed light on the D1 line of rubidium which lies at 795 nm. Although OPOs have long been used as sources of squeezed light, the shorter wavelengths required for atomic interactions have always been a challenge due to a limited choice of nonlinear crystals. PPKTP is a new material that has recently been shown to be highly effective over a very wide range of optical frequencies (Akamatsu, 2006).
The field of squeezed state is an important quantum resource in the study of quantum optics. In the application of quantum information, the spectrum bandwidth of the squeezed light field is an important index to limit the information transmission capacity. Currently, the optical parametric oscillator (OPO) is one of the most efficient ways to generate high squeezed non-classical optical fields. In this paper, the degenerate singly-resonant and doubly-resonant OPO structures are introduced. Both OPOs are composed of concave mirrors and periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate crystals (PPKTP). The length of PPKTP crystal is 10 mm. The curvature radius of the curved surface is 12 mm, and it has high reflectivity at 1550 nm and 775 nm. The plane surface is coated with anti-reflection coating. The air gap length is 21 mm. The concave mirror is an output coupling mirror, and its radius of curvature is 25 mm. In the singly-resonant OPO, only the signal light resonates in the cavity, and the pump light passes through the nonlinear crystal twice and then outputs out of the cavity. The reflectivity of OPO output coupling mirror to the wavelength of 1550 nm is 88%. The linewidth of the corresponding fundamental frequency wave is 77.4 MHz. For doubly-resonant OPO, both the signal light and the pump light resonate simultaneously in the cavity. The reflectivity of OPO output coupling mirror to 1550 nm and 775 nm is 85% and 97.5%, respectively. The linewidth of the corresponding fundamental frequency wave and harmonic is 97.1 MHz and 15.6 MHz, respectively. Then the threshold of OPO is calculated. The threshold pump power of OPO increases with signal light transmittance increasing, but the threshold value of doubly-resonant OPO is obviously smaller than that of singly-resonant OPO. After that, the variation of the squeezing bandwidth of the squeezed light field generated by OPO with the transmittance of the signal is analyzed. Finally, we complete the design of quantum squeezer with low threshold (18 mW), broadband (84.2 MHz) and high stability (the standard deviation of locking baseline is 0.32 MHz) experimentally. The results show that compared with the singly-resonant optical parametric oscillator, the doubly-resonant cavity has the characteristics of low threshold and high stability, which is more suitable for the preparation and practical application of broadband squeezed light field.
(PPKTP) and periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) are compared. A squeezing of 6.8 dB was produced from the DOPA using PPKTP with the phase matching temperature of 34.5 °C. By contrast, a measured squeezing of 4.9 dB was generated using PPLN with the phase matching temperature of 135.2 °C. The degradation of squeezing using a nonlinear crystal with a high phase matching temperature is explained by a theoretical model of DOPAs including the extra phase noise caused by the guided acoustic wave Brillouin scattering within the nonlinear crystal.
Squeezed state of light is an important resource of optical measuerments below the shot noise limit and has been used to improve measurement sensitivity in many areas such as gravitational wave detection, especially in audio frequency region. Compared with the high-frequency squeezed states, the generation of the low-frequency squeezed states is more difficult, because it is limited by several technical noise sources. In this paper we report the observation of more than 2 dB of vacuum squeezing at 1064 nm in the gravitational-wave detection band down to 3 kHz with a double-resonant optical parametric oscillator (OPO). The OPO has a configuration of linear cavity consisting of an input coupling mirror with a transmission of 11% at 532 nm and an output coupling mirror with the transmission of 12% at 1064 nm. The nonlinear materials in the OPO is type-I periodically poled potassium titanyl phosphate (PPKTP) crystal which is chosen for this experiment due to its higher nonlinearity, broader phase matching temperature, and smaller photo-thermal effect. The OPO is pumped by the light of 532 nm from Nd: YVO4/KTP solid-state laser of maximum optical power 3 W. To avoid various noise coupled from the seed beam, the OPO is seeded by vacuum fluctuations instead of coherent field at the fundamental wavelength (1064 nm). A Pound-Drever-Hall (PDH) locking scheme is used to lock the OPO cavity length with the signal derived from the reflected pump beam, so as to lock the pump field and also lock the fundamental field. To make both the pump and seed beams resonant simultaneously, the temperature of the PPKTP is carefully adjusted. The squeezed state can be detected on a homodyne detection by interfering it with the local oscillator (LO) and detected by a balanced detector with two photodiodes (EXT500 T) but having the same quantum efficiency of 86% at 1064 nm. The subsequent electronic noise is analyzed with a low-frequency spectrum analyzer, which shows that the audio noise sources from lab enviroment, locking quality, escape efficiency, propagation loss, homodyne efficiency and detection efficiency have effect on the squeezing pruced by an OPO.