Generation of pulsed and continuous-wave squeezed light with 87Rb vapor.

We present experimental studies on the generation of pulsed and continuous-wave squeezed vacuum via nonlinear rotation of the polarization ellipse in a (87)Rb vapor. Squeezing is observed for a wide range of input powers and pump detunings on the D1 line, while only excess noise is present on the D2 line. The maximum continuous-wave squeezing observed is -1.4 +/- 0.1 dB (-2.0 dB corrected for losses). We measure -1.1 dB squeezing at the resonance frequency of the (85)Rb F = 3 --> F' transition, which may allow the storage of squeezed light generated by (87)Rb in a (85)Rb quantum memory. Using a pulsed pump, pulsed squeezed light with -1 dB of squeezing for 200 ns pulse widths is observed at 1 MHz repetition rate.

Theoretical and experimental investigation of broadband cascaded four-wave mixing in high-Q microspheres.

We analyze the process of cascaded four-wave mixing in a high-Q microcavity and show that under conditions of suitable cavity-mode dispersion, broadband frequency combs can be generated. We experimentally demonstrate broadband, cascaded four-wave mixing parametric oscillation in the anomalous group-velocity dispersion regime of a high-Q silica microsphere with an overall bandwidth greater than 200 nm.

Silicon-waveguide-coupled high-Q chalcogenide microspheres.

We fabricate high-Q arsenic triselenide glass microspheres through a three-step resistive heating process. We demonstrate quality factors greater than 2 x 10(6) at 1550 nm and achieve efficient coupling via a novel scheme utilizing index-engineered unclad silicon nanowires. We find that at powers above 1 mW the microspheres exhibit high thermal instability, which limits their application for resonator-enhanced nonlinear optical processes.

Absorption of ultrashort optical pulses in water.

We investigate the linear propagation of 800 and 1530 nm ultrashort optical pulses in water. For all pulse repetition rates studied, we observe pure exponential decay down to a transmission of 2.5 x 10(-5). We further demonstrate that previous observations of nonmonoexponential decay and pulse splitup in broadband pulses are consistent with Beer's law in the purely linear regime.