Photon Statistics for Injection Lasers

Gabriel Bédard

Hailin Wang, Michael J. Freeman, Duncan G. Steel

Measurements based on balanced detection demonstrate more than 3 dB photon-number squeezing from a quantum well laser injection locked to a coherent signal. We show that injection locking significantly reduces the photon-number fluctuation by suppressing weak side modes that feature intensity noise far above the standard quantum limit. The measurements also reveal that the photon statistics vary qualitatively with the polarization of the laser field.

C. W. J. Beenakker

Igor' V Koryukin

An analysis is made of the model of a single-mode semiconductor injection laser with a feedback loop based on amplitude fluctuations. It is shown that radiation in the sub-Poisson photon statistics can be coupled out from such a laser if a second laser-resonator mirror, which is not in the feedback loop, is used as the exit mirror.

Fam Le Kien, Georg M. Meyer, Ulrich W. Rathe +3 more

The master equation for the field in the two-mode \ensuremath{\Lambda} laser with atoms injected in a superposition of their states is presented, and lasing without population inversion is studied from this vantage. An explicit expression for the steady-state photon distribution is derived under the conditions of detailed balance and no injected coherence. We study the photon statistics, as well as the decay of off-diagonal density-matrix elements and the linewidths of the two laser modes. The effect of an injected atomic coherence on the amplification of light is examined. It is shown that the interference terms in the master equation cancel the absorption terms if the field in each mode is in a coherent state and the conditions for atomic trapping are fulfilled. Numerical calculations demonstrate the buildup of lasing without inversion from the vacuum state of the field.

P. P. Jauho, D.O. Riska, Stig Stenholm