Fluorescence driven by nonclassical light

Abstract

We investigate whether or not irradiation by squeezed light can provide an enhancement of the two-photon excitation of a system over irradiation by classical light. Our emphasis is not only on whether or not there is such an enhancement, but also on whether or not any enhancement can be reasonably detected in an experiment. We begin by developing a model that includes radiative and nonradiative broadening to calculate the total scattered and absorbed energy. As an example calculation, we consider cesium atoms in a magneto-optical trap, and evaluate the fluorescence emission when driven by non-degenerate classical and squeezed light, in both the continuous-wave and pulsed regimes. We find that squeezed light can provide an enhancement in both regimes under ideal circumstances. These enhancements are in principle detectable. However, we stress that they are moderate at best compared to recently reported values for molecular systems.