Date Awarded

Summer 2016

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

Department

Physics

Advisor

Eugeniy E Mikhailov

Committee Member

Seth Aubin

Committee Member

Irina Novikova

Committee Member

John B Delos

Committee Member

Alberto M Marino

Abstract

Squeezed states of light, with field fluctuations smaller than the coherent state fluctuations (or shot noise), are used for improving accuracy of quantum-noise limited measurements, like the detection of gravitational waves. They are also essential resources for quantum information transfer protocols. We studied a squeezed vacuum field generated in hot Rb vapor via the polarization self-rotation effect. We studied the mode structure of the squeezed field by spatially-masking the laser beam after its interaction with the Rb atomic vapor. From analysis of the data we developed a multi-mode theory to simulate the mode composition of the squeezed vacuum field. Our experiments showed that the amount of observed squeezing may be limited by the complex mode structure due to the excitement of higher order spatial modes during the nonlinear atom-light interaction. We demonstrated that optimization of the spatial profile of the beam led to higher detected squeezing. Our studies are useful for enhancing precision metrology and quantum memory applications.

DOI

http://doi.org/10.21220/S2TT0S

Rights

© The Author

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