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Quantum Electronics and Laser Science Conference

Exploiting the quantum structure of optical solitons

Gerd Leuchs, Andreas Sizmann, Natalia Korolkova

Published Jan 1, 2000• 0 citations
OpenAlex

Abstract

Summary form only given. Optical solitons in fibres are attractive macroscopical quantum objects, which are particle-like pulses propagating over large distances without distortion due to the balance between Kerr nonlinearity and group velocity dispersion effects. However, in the frame of the quantum theory, they exhibit a complicated internal quantum structure with nontrivial nonlinear dynamics. In the process of the propagation along a fiber, the nonlinear dynamics of secant hyperbolical shaped optical pulses lead to the formation of classically stable soliton pulses with a rich variety of nonclassical properties, such as quantum noise reduction, spectral quantum noise correlations, and quantum non-demolition interactions. We discuss the experimental characterisation of these quantum properties of femtosecond optical solitons at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 /spl mu/m experiencing nonlinear-interactions in silica fibres.

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arXiv:quant-ph/9904104•Physical Review Letters•Nov 24, 1997•39 citations
Summary form only given. Optical solitons in fibres are attractive macroscopical quantum objects, which are particle-like pulses propagating over large distances without distortion due to the balance between Kerr nonlinearity and group velocity dispersion effects. However, in the frame of the quantum theory, they exhibit a complicated internal quantum structure with nontrivial nonlinear dynamics. In the process of the propagation along a fiber, the nonlinear dynamics of secant hyperbolical shaped optical pulses lead to the formation of classically stable soliton pulses with a rich variety of nonclassical properties, such as quantum noise reduction, spectral quantum noise correlations, and quantum non-demolition interactions. We discuss the experimental characterisation of these quantum properties of femtosecond optical solitons at the telecommunication wavelength of 1.5 /spl mu/m experiencing nonlinear-interactions in silica fibres.
Classical optical solitons propagate in optical fibers without temporal or spectral distortion as a result of a balance between phase shifts due to group velocity dispersion and those due to nonlinear self-phase modulation. This balance is achieved by the proper choice of pulse shape and duration for a given pulse energy. The quantum fluctuations associated with a coherent soliton do not undergo stationary propagation, however, and a number of effects are predicted, including the evolution of vacuum noise associated with the input coherent pulse into squeezed fluctuations and the temporal spreading of the soliton pulse because of dispersion acting on quantum fluctuations of the pulse frequency.
Optical solitons are pulses that propagate in optical fibers without temporal or spectral distortion, owing to balancing of the second-order dispersion of the refractive index by nonlinear self-phase modulation induced by the intensity-dependent refractive index. Classically, this stationary, distortion-free propagation requires only the proper choice of pulse width and shape for a given pulse energy. However, quantum mechanical zero-point fluctuations of the amplitude and phase of the optical pulse limit the precision with which this pulse shape can be produced. These quantum fluctuations do not undergo stationary propagation but, rather, evolve because of dispersion and self-phase modulation, As a soliton pulse propagates, this zero-point or vacuum noise associated with the pulse evolves into squeezed noise owing to self-phase modulation in the fiber.1,2
Intrapulse quantum spectral correlation of photon numbers of a femtosecond optical pulse, which propagates a 5-m-long optical fiber, is presented in a matrix format for quantum noise study by numerical calculation. The calculation includes the higher-order optical effects such as intrapulse-stimulated Raman scattering and self-steepening effects, as well as self-phase modulation and group velocity dispersion. The quantum correlations between spectral components (spectral resolution of 0.7 nm) which evolve with the pulse energy are provided in a matrix format at soliton orders including the low orders, N=0.1N=0.1N=0.1 to 1.0 (a 0.1 step), to give the detailed properties of spectral correlation evolutions in the matrix format. It is shown that the photon-number correlations between spectral components near the pulse spectrum center form strong correlations of a square shape in the matrix, at a soliton order NNN ($\ensuremath{\le}$0.4), and then are redistributed into those between spectral components near the spectrum wings such that the cross-shaped correlation pattern in the matrix begin to be visible at N=0.5N=0.5N=0.5 before their further redistribution as $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1.0$. In addition, significant anticorrelations can be increasingly extended to be found between spectral components near the spectrum center as $N\ensuremath{\rightarrow}1.0$, leading to the expectation that the degree of photon-number squeezing by spectral filtering for subsolitons can be lower than that for solitons. Intrapulse-stimulated Raman scattering that starts to become visible at around N=0.6N=0.6N=0.6 produces an asymmetric correlation structure with respect to the spectrum center in the correlation matrices while the relevant pulse self-frequency shift becomes visible at $N\ensuremath{\ge}0.8$. The calculation presented indicates that the measurement of nonlinear effects which are not detectable distinctly at the classical level is possible at the quantum level.
Summary form only given.Spectral filtering of optical solitons has been demonstrated to squeeze their photon-number uncertainty up to a measured value of 3.8 dB. The squeezing has been explained in terms of an uneven spectral distribution of photon-number noise caused by the Kerr nonlinearity of the fiber. Some indication for correlations among different frequency components has been found in a numerical analysis. We present the first experimental evidence for such spectral correlations. The experimental setup is shown. Pulses of 130 fs centered at 1.5 /spl mu/m are launched into a 2.9-m polarization-presenting single-mode optical fiber with energies close to the fundamental soliton energy.
Optical solitons are pulses that propagate in optical fibers without temporal or spectral distortion, owing to balancing of the second-order dispersion of the refractive index by nonlinear self-phase modulation induced by the intensity-dependent refractive index. Classically, this stationary distortion-free propagation only requires the proper choice of pulse width and shape for a given pulse energy. However, quantum fluctuations do not undergo stationary propagation but rather evolve due to dispersion and self-phase modulation. As a soliton pulse propagates, zero-point or vacuum noise associated with the pulse evolves into squeezed noise. Vacuum fluctuations are responsible for the fundamental detector noise floor known as the shot noise limit. Reduction of the noise in the detection of squeezed soliton pulses has achieved a noise level 34% below this limit. In optical fibers, thermal fluctuation of the refractive index limit the noise reduction that can be achieved by adding phase fluctuations in excess of the vacuum noise. At low frequencies thermal noise originates from local structural dynamics of fused silica which produces a 1/f power spectrum and from guided acoustic wage Brillouin scattering which modulates the refractive index at frequencies characteristic of the fiber structure. The bandwidth of these fluctuations is ~2 GHz; and for soliton pulses with spectral bandwidth much >2 GHz, we have shown that this noise can be made insignificant. For very short pulses, however, noise from Raman scattering must be considered. Recent calculations incorporating this noise mechanism are compared with experiment.
We predict phase transitions in the quantum noise characteristics of systems described by the quantum nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation, showing them to be related to the solitonic field transition at half the fundamental soliton amplitude. These phase transitions are robust with respect to Raman noise and scattering losses. We also describe the rich internal quantum noise structure of the solitonic fields in the vicinity of the phase transition. For optical coherent quantum solitons, this leads to the prediction that eliminating the peak sideband noise due to the electronic nonlinearity of silica fiber by spectral filtering leads to the optimal photon-number noise reduction of a fundamental soliton.