Squeezed States of Light for Future Gravitational Wave Detectors at a Wavelength of 1550 nm

authored by
Fabian Meylahn, Benno Willke, Henning Vahlbruch
Abstract

The generation of strongly squeezed vacuum states of light is a key technology for future ground-based gravitational wave detectors (GWDs) to reach sensitivities beyond their quantum noise limit. For some proposed observatory designs, an operating laser wavelength of 1550 nm or around 2 μm is required to enable the use of cryogenically cooled silicon test masses for thermal noise reduction. Here, we present for the first time the direct measurement of up to 11.5 dB squeezing at 1550 nm over the complete detection bandwidth of future ground-based GWDs ranging from 10 kHz down to below 1 Hz. Furthermore, we directly observe a quantum shot-noise reduction of up to (13.5±0.1) dB at megahertz frequencies. This allows us to derive a precise constraint on the absolute quantum efficiency of the photodiode used for balanced homodyne detection. These results hold important insight regarding the quantum noise reduction efficiency in future GWDs, as well as for quantum information and cryptography, where low decoherence of nonclassical states of light is also of high relevance.

Organisation(s)
Institute of Gravitation Physics
QuantumFrontiers
External Organisation(s)
Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute)
Type
Article
Journal
Physical review letters
Volume
129
ISSN
1079-7114
Publication date
16.09.2022
Publication status
Published
Peer reviewed
Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas
Physics and Astronomy(all)
Electronic version(s)
https://doi.org/10.1103/physrevlett.129.121103 (Access: Open)