QUANTUM FLUCTUATIONS IN OPTICAL-SYSTEMS

This chapter discusses the quantum fluctuations in optical systems. Quantum fluctuations are present in every measurement. In the measurement device, quantum fluctuations have an effect similar to that of the instrumental noise or thermal fluctuations. The chapter describes the principal experiments that have generated light with reduced quantum fluctuations, and the applications of such light. Straightforward calculations involving squeezed fields help to explain the experimental results. The squeezed fields are treated in the framework of the semiclassical linear input output theory, which models the quantum fluctuations by classical random fields. The standard representations of quantum optics are used to treat the quantum fluctuations and properties of the squeezed states, and to study the ideal parametric interaction Hamiltonian in detail. The chapter also discusses the quantum properties of the parametric generation in an optical cavity, including the two regimes below and above the oscillation threshold. © 1992, Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.