SQUEEZING PERFORMANCE OF A NONLINEAR SYMMETRICAL MACH-ZEHNDER INTERFEROMETER USING FORWARD DEGENERATE 4-WAVE-MIXING

A nonlinear symmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer is analyzed. It performs squeezing and phase-sensitive amplification through forward degenerate four-wave mixing with automatic phase matching. Since the balanced interferometer is frequency insensitive, the operation is broadband. The squeezing performance is computed numerically by means of the quantum theory without approximation. This result is compared with the squeezing characteristics derived from the linearized representation. It is found that squeezed states can be produced without excess noise. Noise reduction of an interferometric measurement and phase-preserving amplification with this squeezer are also analyzed.