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Physical Review A

Quantum noise in Raman lasers: Effects of pump bandwidth and super- and sub-Poissonian pumping

Helmut Ritsch, Monika A. M. Marte

Published Mar 1, 1993• 37 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We investigate the influence of pump bandwidth and pump intensity noise on the quantum-noise properties of lasers based on a Raman atomic-gain medium, which recently have been predicted to emit narrow-bandwidth, sub-shot-noise light. We show that, using finite-bandwidth pump light, the predicted limit to the laser bandwidth can still be well below the value given by the Shawlow-Townes formula and much smaller than the input bandwidth. The laser intensity noise is shown to be relatively insensitive to input phase noise as long as the Rabi frequency on the lasing transition is large compared to the bandwidth. On the other hand, even small amounts of pump amplitude noise tend to increase strongly the laser spectral bandwidth, especially in the high-intensity limit. Including dynamic pump-noise reduction through multilevel atomic cycling in our model leads to a Mandel Q parameter value even below Q=-1/2, together with a significant enhancement of the output intensity-noise squeezing.

DOI
10.1103/physreva.47.2354

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We investigate the influence of pump bandwidth and pump intensity noise on the quantum-noise properties of lasers based on a Raman atomic-gain medium, which recently have been predicted to emit narrow-bandwidth, sub-shot-noise light. We show that, using finite-bandwidth pump light, the predicted limit to the laser bandwidth can still be well below the value given by the Shawlow-Townes formula and much smaller than the input bandwidth. The laser intensity noise is shown to be relatively insensitive to input phase noise as long as the Rabi frequency on the lasing transition is large compared to the bandwidth. On the other hand, even small amounts of pump amplitude noise tend to increase strongly the laser spectral bandwidth, especially in the high-intensity limit. Including dynamic pump-noise reduction through multilevel atomic cycling in our model leads to a Mandel Q parameter value even below Q=-1/2, together with a significant enhancement of the output intensity-noise squeezing.
We demonstrate that the intensity fluctuations of a laser with a Raman gain medium, described by a large number of independent 3-level atoms, can drop well below the shot noise level. In the limit of a good cavity, where one can adiabatically eliminate the atoms, we find an optimum Mandel Q parameter of Q ≈ −1/2 over a large range of parameters, when the laser is operated well above threshold. This leads to a strong suppression of the low-frequency quantum fluctuations in the laser output. In addition we find that due to suppression of spontaneous emission into the lasing mode, the spectral linewidth of the emitted light can be reduced below the Schawlow-Townes limit by more than one order of magnitude.
The quantum noise properties of atomic and semiconductor lasers are compared. The intensity fluctuation spectrum of the output field is calculated for the case of regularly, i.e., sub-Poissonian, pumped lasers. The effects of spontaneous emission on the output amplitude fluctuations may be suppressed in regularly pumped atomic lasers by requiring the lifetime of the lower lasing level to be short in comparison with that of the upper laser level. The output amplitude fluctuations then tend to zero at the laser frequency. In regularly pumped semiconductor lasers, net stimulated emission of photons dominates over spontaneous emission because of the combination of pumping and rapid intraband thermalization due to Coulomb scattering.
We show that the nonlinear dynamics of the active atoms in conventionally pumped multilevel laser systems can lead to output intensity fluctuations significantly below the shot noise level1,2 (see also Refs, 3-5). Our calculations are based on the standard model of the laser which assumes a large number of atoms resonantly coupled to a single lasing mode. We identify the multiple recycling of the active electron from the lower lasing level to the upper level through pumping as the key process leading to this dynamic pump noise reduction. It is required that (i) the pump rates be comparable to the decay rates of the atom, and (ii) we have a closed repumping cycle, and a constant number of atoms. We find that the results are closely related to recent calculations based on the assumption of an external regular pump6 (for noise reduction in semiconductor lasers, see Ref. 7).
We solve the problem of a laser with variable pumping statistics for any relative magnitude of the atomic- and cavity-decay constants, and obtain a different regime of sub-Poissonian light generation. We show that, even for Poissonian pumping, the noise in the amplitude quadrature outside the cavity can be reduced up to 50% below the shot-noise level when the polarization but not the populations can be adiabatically eliminated. Maximum noise reduction in this case is obtained when the lower level decays much faster than the upper one and occurs at a frequency given by the geometrical mean of the decay rates of the field and the lower-level population. Furthermore, the full consideration of atomic memory effects leads to a generalization of previous results on regularly pumped lasers. We find that, for regular pumping, maximum amplitude-noise reduction (up to complete quieting) still occurs at zero frequency in all cases. However, a long-living polarizaton leads to an increase in amplitude noise and may even eliminate the dip at zero frequency, at the same time leading to a significant quenching of the laser linewidth in the bad-cavity limit.
Using an extension of the Scully—Lamb laser theory we show that by insertion of nonlinear elements in the cavity, laser light with nonclassical sub—Poissonian photon statistics can be generated. For an N—photon absorber in the limit of small saturation the variance of the photon number distribution can be reduced by a factor of (+1/N) compared to Poissonian limit of the usual laser. When we generalize the type of such nonlinear elements to the case of a nonlinear feedback or Raman type nonlinear transition, the noise in the laser intensity can be reduced even further and approach the ideal limit, characterized by a Mandel Q parameter of Q = —1. Furthermore we show how this noise reduction via nonlinearities can be combined with a regular pump mechanism, which recently has been sugessted as a way to generate sub—Poissonian light. It turns out that in certain configurations the effect of both methods can be combined. Finally we show how this nonclassical behaviour is also reflected in a reduction of the output intensity power spectra below the shot noise level.