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Quantum and Semiclassical Optics Journal of the European Optical Society Part B

Intracavity second harmonic generation in a Fabry-Perot resonator: I. Polarization effects

L. Friob, Paul Mandel, Evgeny A. Viktorov

Published Feb 1, 1998• 11 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We study the polarization of the electric field in Fabry-Perot resonators which contain at least two optically birefringent elements. One of them is a frequency-doubling crystal, the other being either a passive and/or an active crystal. Using the Jones matrix technique, we review the polarization properties of the linear Fabry-Perot cavity and extend these results to V-shaped cavities. For these configurations, we derive the rate of conversion of the fundamental frequencies into the second harmonic and the sum frequencies. These conversion rates are interpreted as intensity-dependent losses for the rate equations of the fundamental modes which are derived.

DOI
10.1088/1355-5111/10/1/007

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We study the polarization of the electric field in Fabry-Perot resonators which contain at least two optically birefringent elements. One of them is a frequency-doubling crystal, the other being either a passive and/or an active crystal. Using the Jones matrix technique, we review the polarization properties of the linear Fabry-Perot cavity and extend these results to V-shaped cavities. For these configurations, we derive the rate of conversion of the fundamental frequencies into the second harmonic and the sum frequencies. These conversion rates are interpreted as intensity-dependent losses for the rate equations of the fundamental modes which are derived.
The input-output theory, originally developed for a linear coupling between cavity mode a and a bath, is extended to a coupling that is quadratic in the cavity mode operator a. We then apply this to second-harmonic generation, in a cavity that is resonant at the fundamental frequency and has an active laser medium working at the fundamental frequency. We find intensity squeezing of 50% below the shot-noise level in the output light at the second-harmonic frequency, whether or not the cavity is resonant at the second-harmonic frequency. To compare the singly resonant cavity to the doubly resonant cavity, we develop in an appendix a general technique for extracting a single mode from a continuum.
In Chapters 8–13 we always assumed that the nonlinear medium is contained in a unidirectional ring cavity. The case of a Fabry–Perot cavity (Fig. 8.1) is substantially more complex because the interference of the two counterpropagating fields gives rise to a standing-wave pattern that modulates the population difference and the atomic polarization to form gratings with a spatial frequency equal to the inverse of the half-wavelength and its harmonics. Therefore the atomic variables exhibit, in addition to the slow spatial variation which characterizes the envelopes, also a fast spatial variation on the wavelength scale, and the coexistence of these two spatial scales poses a highly nontrivial problem that must be treated with care. In Chapters 9 and 11 we solved exactly the Maxwell–Bloch equations with the ring-cavity boundary conditions for both the active and the passive configuration. Exact solutions of this kind have been obtained also for the equations and boundary conditions of a Fabry–Perot cavity [117–119]. However, for the sake of simplicity we will pass directly to models that are valid in the low-transmission approximation. Again for the sake of simplicity, in this chapter we assume that n B = 1, so that the light velocity in the empty part of the cavity is the same as that in the atomic sample. By following the same line of reasoning as that which we pursued in Chapter 12, in Section 14.1 we introduce a spatial transformation of the electric-field envelopes, which leads to boundary conditions without parameters, while the parameters present in the boundary conditions of the original variables appear in the envelope equations. As in the ring-cavity case, this approach allows one to introduce the cavity modes in a natural way, and to derive a set of modal equations coupled to the equations for the atomic variables. Sets of equations of this kind are common in the laser literature, but are not derived from the true boundary conditions for the cavity.
We study the frequency splitting of the polarization eigenmodes of the fundamental transverse mode in CO 2 laser-machined, high-finesse optical Fabry–Perot cavities and investigate the influence of the geometry of the cavity mirrors. Their highly reflective surfaces are typically not rotationally symmetric but have slightly different radii of curvature along two principal axes. We observe that the eccentricity of such elliptical mirrors lifts the degeneracy of the polarization eigenmodes. The impact of the eccentricity increases for smaller radii of curvature. A model derived from corrections to the paraxial resonator theory is in excellent agreement with the measurements, showing that geometric effects are the main source of the frequency splitting of polarization modes for the type of microscopic cavity studied here. By rotating one of the mirrors around the cavity axis, the splitting can be tuned. In the case of an identical differential phase shift per mirror, it can even be eliminated, despite a nonvanishing eccentricity of each mirror. We expect our results to have important implications for many experiments in cavity quantum electrodynamics, where Fabry–Perot cavities with small mode volumes are required.
We have generated squeezed states of light by the process of second harmonic conversion within an optical cavity resonant at both fundamental and harmonic frequencies. The experiment consists of a standing-wave cavity containing a crystal of lithium niobate doped with magnesium oxide and driven by the field from a frequency-stabilized Nd:YAG laser (incident power, ~10 mW). The total field reflected from the cavity illuminates a pair of high quantum efficiency photodiodes, whose individual photocurrents are summed. Observations of squeezing are made by analyzing the spectral density of fluctuations for this sum photo-current while the cavity detuning is scanned through resonance. An intensity regulator holds the reflected light intensity constant during the scan by control of the incident light level. Reductions in photocurrent fluctuations of 12% relative to the vacuum-state or shot-noise level are achieved for frequency offsets near 4 MHz. Since significantly higher degrees of squeezing are predicted by our theoretical analysis, we discuss those processes that currently limit the observed noise reduction, including phase noise produced by the intracavity crystal in the absence of nonlinear conversion.
An experiment is described that investigates certain interference effects for second-harmonic generation within a resonant cavity. By employing a noncollinear geometry, the phases of two fundamental beams from a frequency-stabilized dye laser can be controlled unrestricted by the boundary conditions imposed in an optical cavity containing a KDP crystal and resonant at the second harmonic. The fundamental beams are either traveling or standing waves and generate either one or two coherent sources of ultraviolet radiation within the cavity. The experiment demonstrates explicitly the dependence of second-harmonic phase on the fundamental phases and the dependence of coupling efficiency on the overlap of the harmonic polarization wave with the cavity-mode function. The measurements agree well with a simple theory.
Focus Serial: Frontiers of Nonlinear Optics Nonlinear photonic-crystal microresonators offer unique fundamental ways of enhancing a variety of nonlinear optical processes. This enhancement improves the performance of nonlinear optical devices to such an extent that their corresponding operation powers and switching times are suitable for their implementation in realistic ultrafast integrated optical devices. Here, we review three different nonlinear optical phenomena that can be strongly enhanced in photonic crystal microcavities. First, we discuss a system in which this enhancement has been successfully demonstrated both theoretically and experimentally, namely, a photonic crystal cavity showing optical bistability properties. In this part, we also present the physical basis for this dramatic improvement with respect to the case of traditional nonlinear devices based on nonlinear Fabry-Perot etalons. Secondly, we show how nonlinear photonic crystal cavities can be also used to obtain complete second-harmonic frequency conversion at very low input powers. Finally, we demonstrate that the nonlinear susceptibility of materials can be strongly modified via the so-called Purcell effect, present in the resonant cavities under study.