Abstract

Two micromasers are coupled by sharing a common pump beam. A stream of excited atoms first passes through one micromaser and then enters a second one. The steady state of the second micromaser exhibits a second threshold at θ²= 2. The second threshold is accompanied with a jump of π in the phase of the second micromaser. For higher values of the pump parameter θ new branches of the steady-state intensity keep appearing. In certain parameter regions the phase of the second micromaser locks to that of the first and exhibits correlated emission laser-like noise quenching. In other regions the intensity fluctuations exhibit antibunching. The approach to steady state is also highly nonclassical. There are sharp jumps of magnitude π in the phase of the second micromaser and the intensity tends to overshoot before they settle to their steady-state value. In this transient regime the system exhibits phase noise squeezing.

© 1992 Optical Society of America