Abstract

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) produces Stokes light pulses that originate from quantum noise and exhibit macroscopic amplitude and phase fluctuations from one shot to another.¹ By using transient stimulated Raman scattering, we generated light pulses with macroscopic energy and temporal coherence times that were long compared to their duration. Stokes pulses were generated independently in each arm of an interferometer and were interfered together at the output. The position, modulation depth, and brightness of the interference fringes fluctuated randomly from one shot to the next. We obtained both the ensemble-averaged intensity and the fourth-order intensity correlation function of the interfered Stokes light. The average has a smooth envelope and shows no modulation, whereas the intensity correlation function has a depth of modulation of 0.35 for Stokes generation in the unsaturated (thermal-like) regime and 0.46 in the saturated (laser-like) regime. This is in agreement with predicted values of 0.33 and 0.5.²

© 1990 Optical Society of America