A quantum laser pointer.
The measurement sensitivity of the pointing direction of a laser beam is ultimately limited by the quantum nature of light. To reduce this limit, we have experimentally produced a quantum laser pointer, a beam of light whose direction is measured with a precision greater than that possible for a usual laser beam. The laser pointer is generated by combining three different beams in three orthogonal transverse modes, two of them in a squeezed-vacuum state and one in an intense coherent field. The result provides a demonstration of multichannel spatial squeezing, along with its application to the improvement of beam positioning sensitivity and, more generally, to imaging.
Treps
Nicolas
N
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Quantum-Atom Optics, the Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia. nicolas.treps@spectro.jussieu.fr
Grosse
Nicolai
N
Bowen
Warwick P
WP
Fabre
Claude
C
Bachor
Hans-A
HA
Lam
Ping Koy
PK