SQUEEZED LIGHT FROM A LASER WITH AN INTERNAL CHI(2)-NONLINEAR ELEMENT

We present a theoretical investigation of the potential for squeezing of a doubly resonant cavity that contains a laser medium as well as a chi(2) nonlinearity. If the lasing mode is coupled to its second harmonic, i.e., for a self-frequency-doubling laser, we find more than 60% squeezing in the up-converted mode outside the cavity. In the opposite case of a "self-down-converting laser," i.e., when the lasing mode is coupled to its subharmonic, a perfectly squeezed vacuum in the down-converted mode develops into a less squeezed state with a nonvanishing coherent amplitude as the pump rate is increased. Our analysis extends beyond the first stable regime of the classical dynamics and compares results for different laser models.