No Arabic abstract
We report on the generation of a stable continuous-wave low-frequency squeezed vacuum field with a squeezing level of $3.8pm0.1$ dB at 1064 nm, the wavelength at which laser interferometers for gravitational wave (GW) detection operate, using periodically poled KTiOPO$_4$ (PPKTP) in a sub-threshold optical parametric oscillator. PPKTP has the advantages of higher nonlinearity, smaller intra-crystal and pump-induced seed absorption, user-specified parametric down-conversion temperature, wider temperature tuning range, and lower susceptibility to thermal lensing over alternative nonlinear materials such as MgO doped or periodically poled LiNbO$_3$, and is, therefore, an excellent material for generation of squeezed vacuum fields for application to laser interferometers for GW detection.
We report the experimental demonstration of directly produced polarization squeezing at 1064 nm from a type I optical parametric amplifier (OPA) based on a periodically poled KTP crystal (PPKTP). The orthogonal polarization modes of the polarization squeezed state are both defined by the OPA cavity mode, and the birefringence induced by the PPKTP crystal is compensated for by a second, but inactive, PPKTP crystal. Stokes parameter squeezing of 3.6 dB and anti squeezing of 9.4 dB is observed.
Low-noise quantum frequency conversion in periodically-poled nonlinear crystals has proved challenging when the pump wavelength is shorter than the target wavelength. This is - at least in large part - a consequence of the parasitic spontaneous parametric down-conversion of pump photons, whose efficiency is increased by fabrication errors in the periodic poling. Here we characterise the poling quality of commercial periodically-poled bulk potassium titanyl phosphate (ppKTP) by measuring the sum-frequency generation (SFG) efficiency over a large phase mismatch range from 0 to more than 400$pi$. Over the probed range the SFG efficiency behaves nearly ideally and drops to a normalised efficiency of $10^{-6}$. Our results demonstrate that any background pedestal which would be formed by random duty cycle errors in ppKTP is substantially reduced when compared to periodically poled lithium niobate. The standard deviation of the random duty cycle errors can be estimated to be smaller than 2% of the domain length. From this, we expect a noise spectral density which is at least one order of magnitude smaller than that of current state-of-the-art single-step frequency converters.
We report generation of squeezed vacuum in sideband modes of continuous-wave light at 946 nm using a periodically poled KTiOPO_4 crystal in an optical parametric oscillator. At the pump power of 250 mW, we observe the squeezing level of -5.6+/-0.1 dB and the anti-squeezing level of +12.7+/-0.1 dB. The pump power dependence of the observed squeezing/anti-squeezing levels agrees with the theoretically calculated values when the phase fluctuation of locking is taken into account.
We report on the generation of photon pairs in the 1550-nm band suitable for long-distance fiber-optic quantum key distribution. The photon pairs were generated in a periodically poled lithium niobate waveguide with a high conversion-efficiency. Using a pulsed semiconductor laser with a pulse rate of 800 kHz and a maximum average pump power of 50 muW, we obtained a coincidence rate of 600 s^-1. Our measurements are in agreement with a Poissonian photon-pair distribution, as is expected from a comparison of the coherence time of the pump and of the detected photons. An average of 0.9 photon pairs per pulse was obtained.
Optical waveguides made from periodically poled materials provide high confinement of light and enable the generation of new wavelengths via quasi-phase-matching, making them a key platform for nonlinear optics and photonics. However, such devices are not typically employed for high-harmonic generation. Here, using 200-fs, 10-nJ-level pulses of 4100 nm light at 1 MHz, we generate high harmonics up to the 13th harmonic (315 nm) in a chirped, periodically poled lithium niobate (PPLN) waveguide. Total conversion efficiencies into the visible--ultraviolet region are as high as 10 percent. We find that the output spectrum depends on the waveguide poling period, indicating that quasi-phase-matching plays a significant role. In the future, such periodically poled waveguides may enable compact sources of ultrashort pulses at high repetition rates and provide new methods of probing the electronic structure of solid-state materials.