Multimode non-classical light generation through the OPO threshold

Abstract

We show that an Optical Parametric Oscillator which is simultaneously resonant for several modes, either spatial or temporal, generates both below and above threshold a multimode non-classical state of light consisting of squeezed vacuum states in all the non-oscillating modes. We confirm this prediction by an experiment dealing with the degenerate TEM$_{01}$ and TEM$_{10}$ modes. We show the conservation of non-classical properties when the threshold is crossed. The experiment is made possible by the implementation of a new method to lock the relative phase of the pump and the injected beam.