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Towards Low-frequency Squeezed Light and Its Applications with Four-wave Mixing in Rubidium Vapor

Meng-Chang Wu

Published Jan 1, 2020• 0 citations

Abstract

We study a variety of mechanisms that introduce noise into squeezed light generated by a four-wave mixing (4WM) process in Rb vapor. The noise from the seeding beam itself is a general noise that appears in any squeezed light generated from a seeding process. This noise dominates in the squeezed light at acoustic and lower measurement frequencies. A second excess noise source is observed in the twin beams pumped by either a diode laser system or a Ti:sapphire laser system. This excess noise is much stronger in the diode laser systems. It is present in the twin beams at measurement frequencies when the 4WM gain is reduced toward unity. Most of this excess noise can be removed with a dual-seeded 4WM scheme. A third noise source we examine is from a two-beam coupling that degrades the squeezing of the dual-seeded 4WM process at low frequencies of the order of the atomic transition linewidth. This noise can be avoided by seeding skew rays in the 4WM gain region. This gives us an insight to solve this "cross talk" problem by imaging the source in the 4WM gain region. In addition to studying noise sources, we propose a gain-independent calibration scheme that relies on higher order correlation function for the absolute calibration of photodiodes. Having low frequency squeezing is really important if we record quantum images with a CCD camera, which has a slow shutter speed. Also, it's been very difficult for people to get low-frequency squeezing. We obtain a record level of low-frequency squeezing using a simple dual-seeding technique. With this study of noise sources we are closer to having a portable quantum light source using diode lasers.

DOI: 10.13016/fr6r-x4wp

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We study a variety of mechanisms that introduce noise into squeezed light generated by a four-wave mixing (4WM) process in Rb vapor. The noise from the seeding beam itself is a general noise that appears in any squeezed light generated from a seeding process. This noise dominates in the squeezed light at acoustic and lower measurement frequencies. A second excess noise source is observed in the twin beams pumped by either a diode laser system or a Ti:sapphire laser system. This excess noise is much stronger in the diode laser systems. It is present in the twin beams at measurement frequencies when the 4WM gain is reduced toward unity. Most of this excess noise can be removed with a dual-seeded 4WM scheme. A third noise source we examine is from a two-beam coupling that degrades the squeezing of the dual-seeded 4WM process at low frequencies of the order of the atomic transition linewidth. This noise can be avoided by seeding skew rays in the 4WM gain region. This gives us an insight to solve this "cross talk" problem by imaging the source in the 4WM gain region. In addition to studying noise sources, we propose a gain-independent calibration scheme that relies on higher order correlation function for the absolute calibration of photodiodes. Having low frequency squeezing is really important if we record quantum images with a CCD camera, which has a slow shutter speed. Also, it's been very difficult for people to get low-frequency squeezing. We obtain a record level of low-frequency squeezing using a simple dual-seeding technique. With this study of noise sources we are closer to having a portable quantum light source using diode lasers.

We report the generation of strong, bright-beam intensity-difference squeezing down to measurement frequencies below 10 Hz. We generate two-mode squeezing in a four-wave mixing (4WM) process in Rb vapor, where the single-pass-gain nonlinear process does not require cavity locking and only relies on passive stability. We use diode laser technology and several techniques, including dual seeding, to remove the noise introduced by seeding the 4WM process as well as the background noise. Twin-beam intensity-difference squeezing down to frequencies limited only by the mechanical and atmospheric stability of the lab is achieved. These results should enable important low-frequency applications such as direct intensity-difference imaging with bright beams on integrating detectors.

We investigate the effect of 2-beam coupling in different imaging geometries in generating intensity-difference squeezing from four-wave mixing (4WM) in Rb atomic vapors. A recently-introduced dual-seeding technique can cancel out the classical noise in a seeded four-wave mixing process. This dual-seeding technique, however, can introduce new complications that involve 2-beam coupling between different seeded spatial modes in the atomic vapor and can ruin squeezing at frequencies on the order of the atomic linewidth and below. This complicates some forms of quantum imaging using these systems. Here we show that seeding the 4WM process with skew rays can eliminate the excess noise caused by 2-beam coupling. To avoid 2-beam coupling in bright, seeded images, it is important to re-image the object in the gain medium, instead of focussing through it.

We have built a compact light source for bright squeezed twin-beams at 795\,nm based on four-wave-mixing in atomic

^{85}

Rb vapor. With a total optical power of 400\,mW derived from a free running diode laser and a tapered amplifier to pump the four-wave-mixing process, we achieve 2.1\,dB intensity difference squeezing of the twin beams below the standard quantum limit, without accounting for losses. Squeezed twin beams generated by the type of source presented here could be used as reference for the precise calibration of photodetectors. Transferring the quantum correlations from the light to atoms in order to generate correlated atom beams is another interesting prospect. In this work we investigate the dispersion that is generated by the employed four-wave-mixing process with respect to bandwidth and dependence on probe detuning. We are currently using this squeezed light source to test the transfer of spatial information and quantum correlations through media of anomalous dispersion.

Using a nondegenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) process based on a double-Λ scheme in hot cesium vapor, we demonstrate a compact diode-laser-pumped quantum light source for the generation of quantum correlated twin beams with a maximum squeezing of 6.5 dB. The squeezing is observed at a Fourier frequency in the audio band down to 0.7 kHz which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first observation of sub-kilohertz intensity-difference squeezing in an atomic system so far. A phase-matching condition is also investigated in our system, which confirms the spatial-multi-mode characteristics of the FWM process. Our compact low-frequency squeezed light source may find applications in quantum imaging, quantum metrology, and the transfer of optical squeezing onto a matter wave.