Abstract

Due to improvements in detector sensitivity, quantum noise is known to be the limiting factor of many lasers and other optical devices. In this work we present a fully quantum mechanical theory of multiwave mixing to study the effects of spontaneous emission noise on three- and four- wave mixing. The foundations of this theory have been presented in a series of papers^1-3 demonstrating how such diverse topics as resonance fluorescence, saturation spectroscopy, phase conjugation, and squeezed states of light share a common origin.

© 1987 Optical Society of America