Erlangen 2018 – scientific programme
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Q: Fachverband Quantenoptik und Photonik
Q 12: Quantum Optics II
Q 12.3: Talk
Monday, March 5, 2018, 14:30–14:45, K 0.016
Quantum-limited Coherent Combination of Optical Signals — •Sourav Chatterjee1,2,3, Christian R. Müller1,2, Florian Sedlmeir1,2, Christoph Marquardt1,2,3, and Gerd Leuchs1,2,3 — 1MPI for the Science of Light, Erlangen, Germany — 2Department of Physics, FAU, Erlangen, Germany — 3School in Advanced Optical Technologies, Erlangen, Germany
Extremely powerful lasers are needed for various applications in science and industry. State-of-the-art technology only offers quantum-noise-limited lasers in the power range of a few watts. Thermal mode instabilities (TMI) cause high quality fibre laser beams to become unstable above a certain threshold power [1]. This limits the precision of quantum-limited metrology as well as the efficiency of coherent parametric processes.
Coherent combination enables the scaling of fibre laser power beyond the TMI threshold. In this technique, multiple weaker quantum-noise-limited beams, split from a seed laser, are individually amplified with identical fibre amplifiers operating below TMI threshold and then recombined by a series of beam-splitters to generate a high power beam [2]. However, the quality of the output beam depends crucially on the interference after the beam-splitter series. In our experiment, we demonstrate interferometric locking schemes utilizing quantum-limited phase measurements along with fast feedback electronics to investigate fundamental boundaries and quantum limits of coherent combination.
[1] T. Eidam et al., Opt. Express 19 (2011).
[2] H. Tünnermann et al., Opt. Express 19 (2011).