Intensity Fluctuation Techniques in Light Scattering

Michael J. Stephen

Alexander Y. Potekhin

B. R. Mollow

O de los Santos-Sánchez

In the context of the quantum-mechanical description of single-molecule surface-enhanced Raman scattering, intensity-field correlation measurements of photons emitted from a plasmonic cavity are explored, theoretically, using the technique of conditional homodyne detection. The inelastic interplay between plasmons and vibrations of a diatomic molecule placed inside the cavity can be manifested in phase-dependent third-order fluctuations of the light recorded by the aforesaid technique, allowing us to reveal signatures of non-classicality (indicatives of squeezing) of the outgoing Raman photons.

L. Mandeļ

The fluctuation and correlation properties of light scattered by a fluid are studied, without neglect of the spectral linewidth of the incident field. When the source is a single-mode laser, it is shown that, although the instantaneous amplitude of the scattered field obeys a Gaussian probability density, the scattered field is not a Gaussian field. The linewidth of the laser beam is reflected in the amplitude correlations of the scattered light, but not in the intensity correlations. On the other hand, when the laser is oscillating in more than one mode simultaneously, the spectral profile of the laser beam makes a contribution to the spectral density of the scattered intensity fluctuations, and cannot be neglected.

B. R. Mollow