Generation, transfer, and application of a squeezed vacuum

Summary form only given. We present in detail the limits and requisites to large observable squeezing from a below threshold optical parametric oscillator (OPO) and report more than 7 dB of quadrature squeezing measured from the vacuum output of a below threshold OPO. Two methods of transferring the vacuum squeezing onto a bright beam using the squeezed vacuum system are examined. The first method involves the injection of a seed field into the parametric oscillator. This converts the OPO into an amplifier or deamplifier (OPA) depending on the relative phase of the seed field to the pump field. When the system is operating as a deamplifier, an intensity squeezing of 5 dB is observed on the bright output. The second method of transferring the vacuum squeezing to a bright beam is via the electro-optic feedforward control by injecting the squeezed vacuum beam into the empty beam splitter port of an electro-optic feedforward loop. We show that with negative feedforward gain, squeezing from the vacuum beam can be electro-optically transferred to the transmitted bright beam. Finally, we show that with signals encoded in one of the beam splitter ports and squeezed vacuum in the other beam splitter port, the correct amount of positive feedforward gain will yield results that are quantum non-demolition in nature.