The different regimes of the optically dense amplifier

Paolo Martelli, Silvia Maria Pietralunga, Mario Martinelli

Photon statistics of amplified spontaneous emission noise has been measured by direct detection, confirming the Bose-Einstein distribution in the few-modes regime, as characteristic of dense wavelength-division multiplexing optical systems, up to the single-mode condition.

Y. Yamamoto, Takaaki Mukai

Silvia Maria Pietralunga, Paolo Martelli, Mario Martinelli

The photon statistics of amplified spontaneous emission in the few-modes regime and in single mode, conditions that are typical of dense wavelength-division multiplexing transmission, have been experimentally proved by direct detection. The dependence of the degeneracy factor for the Bose-Einstein distribution on the degree of second-order coherence of light is stated. The theoretical dependence of the number of amplified spontaneous emission modes on the ratio between the optical channel and the detector bandwidths has also been confirmed by experiments, thus quantifying the loss of validity of asymptotic approximations when they are extended to the few-modes regime.

Kumar

Mukund Vengalattore, Mara Goff Prentiss

An optically dense, anisotropic cloud of ultracold atoms is used to observe recoil-induced resonances in the high-gain regime. Optical gains as large as 30 are realized, limited primarily by pump depletion. We demonstrate a light-amplified all-optical switch based on this effect. The switch exhibits contrasts exceeding 35 dB.

N. R. Brewer, Tian Li, K. M. Jones +1 more