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Journal of the Optical Society of America

Phase-sensitive optical amplifier

Don R. Matthys, E. T. Jaynes

Published Mar 1, 1980• 27 citations
Publisher

Abstract

The application of Armstrong’s super-regenerative principle to a laser amplifier shows that it is possible to control the phase of even a low-gain He-Ne laser amplifier by injecting as few as four or five photons just after the laser is turned on and while it goes through threshold. Estimation of the uncertainties in determining the level of the injected signal and the phase of the laser output indicates that measurements approaching the limit ΔnΔϕ≅1/2 may be possible.

DOI
10.1364/josa.70.000263

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The application of Armstrong’s super-regenerative principle to a laser amplifier shows that it is possible to control the phase of even a low-gain He-Ne laser amplifier by injecting as few as four or five photons just after the laser is turned on and while it goes through threshold. Estimation of the uncertainties in determining the level of the injected signal and the phase of the laser output indicates that measurements approaching the limit ΔnΔϕ≅1/2 may be possible.
In super-regenerative detection, a weak external signal is amplified in an oscillator that is periodically switched on and then quenched. It is shown that very weak optical signals, slightly above the noise level, can be detected effectively by a laser used as a super-regenerative receiver. The detector output for different signal levels and its operating characteristics are determined by numerical integration of stochastic differential equations that represent the growth of laser radiation from a background consisting of signal and noise.
This chapter begins by specializing the general definition of optical amplifiers to a special class of linear amplifiers that includes all those in common use. Amplifiers are divided into the categories of phase insensitive or phase sensitive, and each of these categories is subdivided into the categories of traveling-wave or regenerative. Illustrative examples are given for each of the four types. This is followed by a general description of single-input, single-output linear amplifiers that includes the input-output equation, the conditions for phase insensitivity, and the constraints imposed by unitarity. This general theory is used to determine the noise limits for linear amplifiers. The general amplifier uncertainty principle obtained in this way shows that there are noise free amplifiers.
Optical parametric amplifiers rely on second-order susceptibility (three-wave mixing) or third-order susceptibility (four-wave mixing) in a nonlinear process where the energy of incoming photons is not changed (elastic scattering). In the latter case, two pump photons are converted to a signal and to an idler photon. Under certain conditions, related to the phase evolution of the waves involved, this conversion can be very efficient, resulting in large amplification of an input signal. As the nonlinear process can be very fast, all-optical applications aside from pure amplification are also possible. If the amplifier is implemented in an optical input-phase-sensitive manner, it is possible to amplify a signal wave without excess noise, i.e., with a noise figure of 0 dB. In this paper, we will provide the fundamental concepts and theory of such amplifiers, with a focus on their implementation in highly nonlinear optical fibers relying on four-wave mixing. We will discuss the distinctions between phase-insensitive and phase-sensitive operation and include several experimental results to illustrate their capability. Different applications of parametric amplifiers are also discussed, including their use in optical communication links.