Abstract

Optical quadrature-phase measurements of fields are performed by homodyne measurement with a strong coherent local oscillator as a reference field. However, the local oscillator state need not be in a coherent state. Recently, for example, Kim and Kumar [1] have measured the degree of squeezing in a signal field by using squeezed local oscillators. The advantage of using squeezed local oscillators is that mode-matching the signal field and the local oscillator is important for optimising the efficiency of the measurement, and the mode-matching is best achieved by preparing the local oscillator in a similar fashion to the preparation of the signal field.

© 1996 Optical Society of America