Photon number squeezing of spectrally filtered sub-picosecond optical solitons

Abstract

Photon number squeezing of spectrally filtered optical solitons has been observed in the sub-picosecond regime, where the Raman effect changes the internal quantum structure of each pulse. 160 fs pulses were propagated down a 10 m optical fibre of anomalous group velocity dispersion. At energies below the soliton energy subsequent spectral filtering with an optical band-pass squeezed the directly detected photocurrent fluctuations to 3.2 +/- 0.1 dB (52%) below the shot-noise limit. This implies 4.5 dB (65%) of soliton photon number squeezing, if detection losses are taken into account. Using a spectral edge filter the spectral components of the pulses are shown to contribute asymmetrically to the squeezing due to stimulated Raman scattering.