Single-beam squeezed-state generation in sodium vapor and its self-focusing limitations.
We describe an experiment that generates squeezed states by means of forward four-wave mixing in sodium vapor with a single optical beam. The single-beam arrangement maximizes the pump-probe spatial overlap in the nonlinear medium. Self-focusing (or self-defocusing) is found to be the major limiting factor in achieving optimal squeezing.
Ho
S T
ST
Wong
N C
NC
Shapiro
J H
JH