Abstract

Amplification of light is the basis of the laser, and is used in most optical communication systems. The availability in recent years of beams of nonclassical light has led to an examination of the effects of amplification on the specifically quantum properties of light. It is known that, due to the uncertainty principle, amplifiers inevitably introduce noise to a signal [ 1 ]. the consequences of this noise for nonclassical light have been discussed previously for both lumped and travelling-wave amplifiers [2,3,4,5].

© 1996 Optical Society of America