Thumbnail Image
Publication

Excess optical quantum noise in atomic sensors

Novikova, Irina
; 
Mikhailov, Eugeniy E.
; 
Xiao, Yanhong
; 
Xiao, Yanhong
Abstract
Enhanced nonlinear optical response of a coherent atomic medium is the basis for many atomic sensors, and their performance is ultimately limited by the quantum fluctuations of the optical readout. Here we demonstrate that the off-resonant interactions, with the aid of the near-resonant process, can significantly modify the quantum noise of a coherent light field, even when its effect on the mean signal is negligible. The altered quantum optical noise distribution results in excess noise in the measurement quantity. We illustrate this concept by using an atomic magnetometer based on the nonlinear Faraday effect. These results show the existence of previously unnoticed factors in fundamental limitations in atomic magnetometry and could have impact in a wide range of atom-light-based precision measurements.
Description
Date
2015-01-01
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Collections
Physics
Show all metadata
Download Dataset
Files
Thumbnail Image
Excess_optical_quantum_noise_in_atomic_sensors.pdf
Adobe PDF, 693.99 KB
Rights Holder
Usage License
Embargo
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Journal Issue
Keywords
Citation
Advisor
Department
Physics
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevA.91.051804
URI
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/handle/internal/2013
Embedded videos