Y. Yamamoto and H. A. Haus, Rev. of Mod. Phys

Preparation, measurement and information capacity
of optical quantum states

Y. Yamamoto
Musashino Electrical Communication Laboratories, Nippon Telegraph and Telephone Corporation,
Musashinoshi, Tokyo f80, Japan
H. A. He. us
Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Research Laboratory of Electronics,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139
The preparation, or generation of coherent states, squeezed states, and photon number states is discussed.
The quantum noise is evaluated for various simultaneous measurements of two quadrature components:
heterodyning, the beam splitter followed by two single quadrature measurements, the parametric amplifier,
the (degenerate and/or nondegenerate) four-wave mixer, the Brillouin and Raman amplifiers, and the laser
amplifier. A quantum nondemolition measurement followed by a measurement of the conjugate variable is
also categorized as a simultaneous measurement. It is shown that, for all of these schemes, the minimum
uncertainty product of the measured variables is exactly equal to that required for a simultaneous measure-
ment of two noncommuting variables. On the other hand, measurements of a single quadrature component
are noise-free. Such measurements are degenerate heterodyning, degenerate parametric amplification, and
cavity degenerate four-wave mixing and photon counting by a. photomultiplier or avalanche photodiode.
The Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the quantum-mechanical channel capacity of Shannon are dis-
cussed to address the question "How much information can be transmitted by a single photon?" The
quantum-mechanical channel capacity provides an upper bound on the achievable information capacity and
is ideally realized by photon number states and photon counting detection. Its value is Acu/(1n2)kT bit per
photon. The use of coherent or squeezed states and a simultaneous measurement of two quadrature field
components or the measurement of one single quadrature field component does not achieve the ultimate
limit.
CONTENTS IX. Channel Capacity of Continuum Channel 1015

A. Joint conditional probability and mutual information 1015
B. Channel capacity of coherent state 101S
Introduction 1001 C. Channel capacity for single quadrature measurement
Quantum States of Electromagnetic Waves 1003 of squeezed state 1016
A. Characteristics and generation of coherent states 1003 D. Channel capacity for photon counting measurement
B. Characteristics and generation of squeezed states 1004 of coherent state 1016
C. Photon number states, amplitude-squeezed states, E. Channel capacity with beam splitter followed by
and their generation single quantum measurement detectors 1017
General Quantum Limit on the Simultaneous Measure- X. Discussion 1017
ment of Two Noncommuting Observables 100S Acknowledgments 1019
IV. Theory of a Linear, Phase-Sensitive Amplifier 1007 References 1019
V. "Devices" for Simultaneous Measurement of Two Non-
commuting Observables 1008 I. INTRODUCT)ON
A. The ideal laser amplifier 1008
B. Parametric amplifier and four-wave mixer 1008 The role of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle as the
C. Heterodyning 1010 quantum-mechanical limit on the precision of measure-
D. The beam splitter 1010 ments has been discussed for many years, because it is a
E. Quasiquantum' nondemolition measurement followed crucial issue for the interpretation of quantum mechanics
by phase measurement 1011
(Bohr, 1935; Einstein et al. , 1935; Bohm, Chaps. 5 and
VI. Quantum Noise of Single Quadrature Measurement
Detectors 1012 22, 1951; Aharanov and Bohm, 1961, 1964).
A. Degenerate heterodyning (homodyning) 1012 Recently, the interest has been rekindled. in the two
B. Degenerate parametric amplifier 1012 fields, in which measurement accuracies close to the
C. Cavity degenerate four-wave mixer 1012 quantum limit imposed by the Heisenberg uncertainty
VII. Noise of Photon Number Detectors 1012 principle have been achieved. The development of the su-
A. Photomultiplier 1012 perconducting quantum interferometric device (SQUID)
B. Avalanche photodiode 1013
amplifier, which is close to quantum limited sensitivity,
VIII. Quantization of Shannon's Channel Capacity 1013
A. The negentropy of information 1013
raises the possibility of detecting gravitational waves us-
B. Quantum-mechanical channel capacity and informa- ing a mechanically resonant {Weber bar) antenna (Thorne,
tion capacity of single photon 1013 1980a, 1980b). Unfortunately, a resonant bar antenna
C. Sampling theorem and bandwidth 1014 couples so weakly to gravitational waves that the standard
Reviews of Modern Physics, Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986 Cppyright 1986 The American Physical Society 1001
1002 Y. Yamamoto and H. A. Haus: Preparation. . . of optical quantum states
l
quantum limit, imposed by the position-momentum un- able. The information can be extracted from the observ-,
)
certainty relation, Axbp h/2, of the bar itself, prevents
detection of the excited oscillation of the order of 10
able with reduced quantum noise, and thus the standard
quantum limit can be overcome.
cm. If the position is measured with an accuracy of In the same way as the Heisenberg uncertainty princi-
M =10 ' cm, the back action on the momentum ple sets an upper limit on the precision of a quantum
bp=R/2Lbc changes the position by Ax=hut=b&pt/m at measurement, Shannon's channel capacity (Nyquist, 1928;
the instant of the second measurement after t sec. The Shannon, 1948) imposes an ideal limit on the efficiency of
value is 5&&10 ' cm when the second measurement is transmission and reception of information. The effect of
done at t=10 sec, even if the mass of the antenna is 10 the "granular nature" of electromagnetic waves on
kg. Shannon's channel capacity has been discussed since the
The new technique called "quantum nondemolition advent of the laser (Stern, 1960; Gordon, 1962; Levedev
(QND) measurement" was proposed by Braginsky et al. and Levitin, 1963; Takahashi, 1965; She, 1968; Helstrom,
(1977) and Unruh (1978) to overcome the standard quan- 1976; Braginsky and Khalili, 1983). Whereas the
tum limit. A similar technique called "back action evad- quantum-mechanical form of Shannon's channel capacity
ing" was proposed by Thorne et al. (1978). In the two is &cry simply stated, its meaning is profound and con-
measurement schemes of the occupation number or of one tains implicitly the rules imposed on the preparation,
quadrature component of the mechanical harmonic oscil- transmission, and measurement of quantum states. This
lator the back action of the first measurement is imposed article reviews the impact of various aspects of quantum
on the conjugate observable of the measured variable. measurement on the quantum-mechanical form of
When the subsequent measurement is performed, the back Shannon's channel capacity.
action does not disturb the free motion of the measured Section II discusses the control of the quantum state of
variable. This is indeed possible by a proper choice of the electromagnetic waves. A discussion is presented of the
measured observable and the interaction (Braginsky characteristics of a coherent state, a squeezed state, a pho-
et al. , 1980; Caves et al. , 1980).. The other new tech- ton number state and an amplitude-squeezed state and the
nique called "contractive state measurement" was pro- present means of generating them. An ideal laser excited
posed by Yuen (1983). In this measurement scheme of far above threshold can generate a "quasi" coherent state.
the position of a free mass, the back action imposed on Optical attenuation can extinguish the difference between
the momentum has a quantum-mechanical correlation the "quasi" coherent state generated by an ideal laser and
with the position operator and contributes to the position the "genuine" coherent state.
uncertainty reduction at the instant of the second mea- A squeezed state can be generated via unitary evolution
surement. A practical scheme to realize this was pro- using a phase-conjugate wave. A variety of optical non-
posed by Bondurant and Shapiro (1984). linear processes are candidates (Takahashi, 1965; Yuen
Another field of interest is the measurement of optical and Shapiro, 1979; Walls, 1983; Yurke, 1984). Recently,
fields and the transmission of information using a Slusher et al. (1985) observed a squeezed state in a cavity
coherent laser radiation field. The precise measurement four-wave mixer. An alternative way to generating a
of inertial rotation has now become possible by the advent squeezed state is the combination of negative feedback via
of the four-frequency ring-laser gyroscope (Dorschner a quantum nondemolition measurement (Yamamoto
et al. , 1980) and the ring-fiber gyroscope (Sanders et al. , et al. , 1984; Haus and Yamamoto, 1986). The scheme
1980). The sensitivities of these devices have already can also generate an amplitude-squeezed state (Yamamoto
reached the quantum limit determined by the photon et al. 1986). Regardless of the system's initial state, the
number-phase uncertainty relation, hnhcp) —, of the ra-', quantum nondemolition measurement leaves it in an
diation field. The same quantum limit is now being ap- eigenstate of the measured observable with the measured
proached by optical communication using coherent eigenvalue. The negative feedback is required to keep the
heterodyning detection (Yamamoto, 1980; Chan, 1981) system in such an eigenstate continuously, because the
and by optical communication using photon counting system (laser) undergoes unpredictable free motion by
(Pierce et al. , 1981). The quantum limit of the photon coupling to reservoirs (subsystems).
number and phase measurements —
are b, n v'(n) and The simultaneous measurement of two conjugate ob-
by&=i/(2V'(n)). This standard quantum limit is at- servables inevitably introduces additional noise to resolve
tributable to the quantum noise of a coherent state the noncommutability of the observables (Haus and Mul-
(Glauber, 1963). len, 1962; Arthurs and Kelly, Jr. , 1965; She and Heffner,
Quantum states of electromagnetic waves called 1966; Caves, 1982). Types of apparatus for a simultane-
"squeezed states (Takahashi, 1965; Stoler, 1971; Yuen, ous measurement are discussed in Sec. IV.
" "
1976), "photon number states, and "amplitude-squeezed Optical heterodyning and the beam splitter followed by
states (or number-phase minimum uncertainty states) two single-quadrature measurements are analyzed. The
(Carruthers and Neito, 1968)" were proposed to bypass parametric amplifier, the nondegenerate four-wave mixer,
the standard quantum limit. These states of the elec- the Raman amplifier, the Brillouin amplifier, and the
tromagnetic field have reduced quantum noise for one ob- laser amplifier are described as high gain phase insensitive
servable and preserve the Heisenberg uncertainty relation amplifiers. The degenerate parametric amplifier is a
by an increased quantum noise for the conjugate observ- phase-sensitive apparatus. The quasi-QND measurement
Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

Y. Yamamoto and H. A. Haus: Preparation. . . of optical quantum states 1003
of photon number in an optical Kerr medium is ets that are quantum states of the electromagnetic field.
equivalent to a simultaneous measurement of photon The transmission involves preparation of these states, the
number and phase, if the first quasi-QND measurement reception is achieved by means of their detection. In this
of photon number is followed by a phase measurement. section we review briefly a variety of quantum states of
Sections V and VI show that a single quadrature mea- importance, coherent states, in-phase and quadrature-
surement and photon counting detection can be done squeezed states, and amplitude-squeezed states and dis-
without additional noise. Optical degenerate heterodyn- cuss the current means of generating these states.
ing, degenerate parametric amplification, and cavity de-
generate four-wave mixing realize such noise-free single
quadrature measurements. The photomultiplier and A. Characteristics and generation of coherent states
avalanche photodiode are, ideally, noise-free photon
counters (Sec. VII). A coherent state is the eigenfunction l
a) of the pho-
The quantum-mechanical formulation of Shannon's ton annihilation operator a:
channel capacity is presented in Sec. VIII, using the a a =a a (2. 1)
negentropy principle of information of Brillouin (1956)
and the sampling theorem of Nyquist (1928). The max- A coherent state is obtained from the vacuum state l0)
imum amount of information that can be transmitted by a via the unitary displacement operation D(a)=exp(aa+
single photon is infinite at zero temperature and is equal —a*a) as follows (Glauber, 1963):
to fico/(1n2)kT bit at finite temperature. This ultimate in-
formation capacity of a photon can be realized only by l
a) =exp(aa+ —a*a ) l
0) . (2.2)
enormous reduction in channel efficiency, i.e., informa- If the recursion relations for the photon number state
tion rate per bandwidth, however. Thus the quantum fn),
noise does not place any limit on the information capacity
of a single photon but the thermal noise does. An a n+l&=&n n),
f l
(2.3)
equivalent but more heuristic statement is that the quan- ~+ f~&=v'~+1 l~+», (2.4)
tum noise is completely controllable but the thermal noise
cannot be fully controlled. are used in (2.2), the expansion coefficients of a coherent
The dependence of the channel capacity on the specific state in terms of photon number states are obtained as
schemes of state preparation and measurement is dis-
cussed in Sec. IX. The quantum-mechanical channel (2.5)
capacity derived in Sec. VIII is ideally realized by photon
number states and photon counting detection. For the The photon probability distribution P(n)= (n a) is l l l
coherent states and squeezed states of large photon num- Poissonian.

ber, the simultaneous measurement of two quadrature The non-Hermitian operator a can be separated into
components and the single quadrature measurement, two Hermiiian components a and a2 &
respectively, are optimum. Although thyrse measurement

schemes can recover the highest information for the two
a =aI+ia2 (2.6)
states, their channel capacities are smaller than the ulti- which are the "in-phase" and "quadrature" field-
mate limit. The information capacities of a single photon component operators.
are 1.44 bit for the simultaneous measurement of the A coherent state satisfies the following relations:
coherent state and 2.88 bit for the single quadrature mea-
surement of the squeezed state. al+ia2 &al &+1 (+2 & (2.7)
If the coherent state of large photon number is detected &~'~&= ial'=a1+a2 (~1&'+&~2) (2.8)
by a photon counter, ihe channel capacity is approximate-
ly one-half of the ultimate limit. The halving of the effi- &~.l&=&~.', ) =-,' . (2.9)
ciency is due to the fact that equal amounts of informa-
tion could be carried in the form of photon number and A coherent state is one of the minimum uncertainty
phase, and the photon counting jneasurement does not states, which satisfy the Heisenberg uncertainty principle
utilize the phase information. However, if the coherent (2. 10)
state of small photon number is detected by a photon
counter, the channel capacity approaches the ultimate Equation (2.9) shows that a coherent state satisfies the
hmit. This is because the coherent state of small photon minimum uncertainty product (2. 10) with equal noises in
number loses its wave nature (phase information). the in-phase and quadrature components.
Cxlauber (1951, 1963) has shown that a classical current
source generates a coherent state. In a more realistic con-
II. QUANTUM STATES
text, a laser far above threshold generates a sequence of
OF FLECTROMAGNETlC WAVES states that are not too far from a coherent state (have lit-
Information is conveyed electromagnetically by the tle excess noise above the quantum noise). Each state oc-
transmission and reception of electromagnetic wave pack- cupies a time interval corresponding to the inverse
Rev. Mod. Phys. , Yol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

linewidth of the laser, the phase of the states pertaining to ture component (a2). Squeezed states appear under
successive time intervals goes through a "random walk. " several names in the literature: pulsating wave packet
Through attenuation, the excess noise can be made small (Takahashi, 1965), generalized coherent state (Stoler,
compared with the quantum noise and thus the attenuated 1971), and two-photon coherent state (Yuen, 1976).
radiation from a laser far above threshold can be made to A squeezed state is the eigenfunction pva& of the l
approach a sequence of coherent states. If ihe laser is operator b =pa+va+:

phase locked' to a "local oscillator" master laser, the
phases of the slave laser follow those of the master oscil- (pa+ va+) l pva & =(p, a+va*) l pva &, (2. 11)
lator and may be considered controlled (within an uncer- where
tainty prescribed by the photon number-phase uncertainty
product). Thus one may say that the generation of (2. 12)
coherent states for the transmission of information is real- so that the commutation relation [b, b+] = 1 is satisfied.
izable. The difference in the error distributions &a p a & l l
An ideal squeezed state is obtained from the vacuum
for a coherent state and the quantum state of an ideal state 0 & by operation with the squeezing operator
laser is shown. in Fig. 1. &(g)=exp( —,'/*a ——,pa+ ), followed by operation with
l
the displacement operation D(a):

B. Characteristics and generation of squeezed states
l pva& =D(a)S(g) 0&, l
(2. 13)
An ideal squeezed state is another kind of minimum where
uncertainty state. One quadrature component of the field
(say a&) has smaller fluctuations than the other quadra-
l
p, l'=cosh'l r l, (2. 14)
l
v '=sinh'l r l
. (2. 15)
A squeezed state satisfies the following relations:
&a & &p ~ v~ & a &a$ &+i&a2& (2. 16)
!deal Laser &ba', & =-,'e (2. 18)

b, a', = —,e '" .
'
& & (2. 19)
Equations (2. 12), (2. 18), and (2.19) show that a squeezed
state satisfies the minimum uncertainty product and has
different amounts of noise in the two quadrature com-
ponents. Here the complex amplitude axis (a~, a2) is ro-
tated by 0/2 so that a& and a2 represent the minor and
major axes of the error ellipse. Equations (2. 16) and
(2. 17) indicate that part of the mode energy v is con- l l
sumed to reduce one of the quadrature noises. Squeezed

,' —a
, ~zz~ ~ «l states are compared with a coherent state in Fig. 1.
An in-phase squeezed state has the reduced quantum
noise along the coherent excitation and exhibits sub-
Poissonian photon statistics and photon antibunching. A
(b)
quadrature squeezed state has the reduced quantum noise
in quadrature to the coherent excitation and exhibits
super-Poissonian photon statistics and photon bunching.
The ultimate limit of these states in the "quadrature
phase eigenstate" as shown in Fig. 1, which is unrealistic
in the sense that it requires an infinite mode energy.
In principle, an ideal squeezed state can be generated by
(e) (&) (g) a degenerate parametric amplifier (Takahashi, 1965). The
FICx. 1. The error distributions &a p a) in l l
a~ —
space for
a2 equation for the unitary evolution generating such a state
ideal laser and for a variety of optical quantum states. (a) is given by
coherent state, (b) in-phase squeezed state, {c) quadrature-
squeezed state, {d) amplitude-squeezed state, (e) quadrature- Q =v Ga+v'G —la+, (2.20)
phase eigenstate, (f) in-phase eigenstate, and g) photon number
I',
eigenstate. where a is an input mode operator which is assumed to be

Y. Yamamoto and H. A. Haus: Preparation. . . Of optical quantum states 1005
a coherent state and b is an output operator. The output probe

mode is in a squeezed state. laser
Degenerate four-wave mixing in an interferometer con-
figuration (Yuen and Shapiro, 1979) and in a cavity con-
laser sub-Polssonlan
figuration (Yurke, 1984) were proposed as other candi- I
I state
l
dates. These schemes reduce to the same basic equation optical Kerr medium
I
1
(2.20). Nondegenerate forward four-wave mixing followed

by an optical heterodyne detector achieves a relation simi-
lar to ('2. 20) for the intermediate frequency signal (Leven-
son et al. , 1985). negative feedback
Several experimental efforts are under way toward the (a3
generation of squeezed states by these schemes (Bon-
durant et al. , 1984; Levenson, 1985; Slusher et al. 1985).
Recently Slusher et al. (1985) observed the squeezing of
vacuum fluctuations in a cavity four-wave mixer.
exlO
6x l0
-5 p
'
e+
0
~
o
negative feedback
loser
C. Photon number states, amplitude-squeezed states, 0

0
0
and their generation 4x IQ

-5
on distribution
A photon number state is completely determined by its -5
2x10
photon number. The phase is completely random. Pho-
ree-running loser
ton number states are generated by performing a quantum
nondemolition measurement of photon number on a wave 0 —p~n -An 0 &n
L
2&n
packet. The number of photons is unaffected by the mea- en& n
surement and known, after passage of the wave packet FIG. 2. (a} The configuration of a negative amplitude feedback
through the measurement apparatus. A nonlinear inter- laser with quantum nondemolition measurement. (b) The ob-
ferometer containing a Kerr medium probed by radiation served sub-Poissonian photon statistics in the negative ampli-
of (center) frequency different from that of the packet to tude feedback semiconductor laser using part of the photo-
be measured performs such a QND measurement (Imoto detected output.
et al. , 1985).
An amplitude-squeezed state is a squeezed state that
Sub-Poissonian statistics were actually observed in the
has reduced photon number noise and enhanced phase
negative amplitude feedback semiconductor laser (Machi-
noise as shown in Fig. 1. %'eakly sub-Poissonian photon
statistics were observed in resonance fluorescence (Short da and Yamamoto, 1986) as shown in Fig. 2(b). In this
and Mandel, 1983). It is not necessarily a number-phase experiment, however, a conventional destructive photon
minimum uncertainty state.
detector was used instead of the QND measurement of
It has been proposed that an amplitude-squeezed state photon number. Under these conditions, amplitude-
can be generated by a negative amplitude feedback laser squeezed states cannot be extracted from the system
(Haus and Yamamoto, 1986).
incorporating a quantum nondemolition measurement of
photon number (Yamamoto et al. , 1984; Yamamoto
et a/. , 1986). The proposed scheme to generate an III. GENERAL QUANTUM LIMIT ON THE
amplitude-squeezed state is shown in Fig. 2(a). The phase SIMULTANEOUS MEASUREMENT OF
shift of the probe wave in an optical Kerr medium mea- TWO NONCOMMUTING OBSERVABLES
sures the photon number of the laser emission (signal
wave) (Imoto, Haus, and Yamamoto, 1985). The photon In the preceding section, we have discussed briefly a
number fluctuation of the signal wave is measured non- variety of quantum states of use, or potential use, in the
destructively and it is negatively fed back to the laser encoding of information. The coherent state has nonzero
pump. The photon number fluctuation is reduced, but expectation values for both amplitude and phase, or in-
the phase noise of the signal wave is increased by the phase and quadrature components a and a2. Hence both ~
phase modulation due to the probe wave intensity noise. "degrees of freedom" could be used to encode informa-
As will be shown in Sec. V.E, the back action imposed on tion. In the case when two degrees of freedom. represent-
the signal phase is by= I/(2b, n), where b, n is the uncer- ed by two noncommuting quantum observables are used
tainty of the photon number measurement. In the limit for the transmission of information one has to examine
of large feedback gain, an amplitude-squeezed state which carefully the measurement process. The generation of the
satisfies the minimum uncertainty relation b, nb. y= —, can encoded signal does not encounter difficulties in principle.
be generated. The same scheme can generate a squeezed One may imagine that the encoding is done at a classical
state if the QND measurement of a& or a2 (Yurke and power level, with (almost perfect) control of in-phase and
Denker, 1984) incorporates negative phase feedback. quadrature components, followed by attenuation. The re-

ceiver has to detect (measure) these observables simultane- and commute with each other
ously. This is only possible with the introduction of addi-
tional quantum fluctuations (beyond those implied by the [a),8]=[A,a2]=0 . (3.6)
Heisenberg uncertainty principle). From (3.5) we conclude that [B,A] = [a ~, a2]. The uncer-
In this paper, we use the adjective "simultaneous" mea- tainty product for A and 8 is, therefore,
surement to denote the determination of two noncommut-
ing observables of a state, or wave packet. Of course, in a
measurement apparatus, the determination of one variable
(b A 2) (682) ) '
—, ~
( [a &, a2] ) ~
(3.7)
may be delayed with respect to that of the other, and the If the input operators and internal-mode operators are un-
two variables may not be determined simultaneously. The correlated, the uncertainty product for x and y is given by
term double measurement may be more appropriate.
However, in communication systems temporal simultanei-
(~ ')&~y'&=(&~ '&+&~A'&)(&~ '&+&~8'))
ty is usually required, and thus the use of the term simul-
taneous seems to be appropriate.
)( b, a, ) ( b.a ) + ( b. A ) ( b 8 )
Arthurs and Kelly
(1965) have studied a simultaneous measurement of two
+Z((xa') (aa') (aA') (aB') )'"
noncommuting vanables. They assumed the measure-
ment to be performed by coup1ing the system, whose ob-
) 4(ba', ) (ba2) = '
—, .
servables were to be measured, to two measurement sub- Here the equality holds when ( hA ) = ( b, a ) and
systems. " In each of the subsystems one variable is mea- (aB'& = aa', & ).
&
sured, and the system is assumed to be in a minimum un- The above discussion shows that a simultaneous mea-
certainty state. The mean square deviations of the observ- surement requires internal-mode fluctuations to allow
ables measured in this way are, optimally, twice those of commutation of the two simultaneously measured output
the uncertainty principle. operators x and y. These Auctuations in turn increase the
This finding can be summarized as follows. A sirnul- uncertainty of the measurement by at least 3 dB from the
taneous measurement of two noncommuting observables uncertainty product of the input operators. If one lifts
introduces excess noise. The uncertainty product for the the assumption that the input operators and internal-
measurement is 3 dB larger than the one dictated by the mode operators are uncorrelated, it is possible to obtain
uncertainty principle. The single observable measurement (hx )(Ay ) =0. The additional noise encountered in
is free from excess noise and, therefore, the uncertainty the simultaneous measurement of two noncommuting ob-
product for two independent single observable measure- servables has various origins depending upon the specific
ments is reduced to the uncertainty principle. Why, then, measurement apparatus employed. Detectors measuring
is such a noise added to the system'? We shall show below two noncommuting observables fa11 into two general
that additional noise is introduced by the simultaneity of types.
the measurement because two observables measured One type incorporates an amplifier of high gain. After
simultaneously must commute. amplification of the signal to a classical power level, the
Consider a simultaneous "measurement" of two opera- signal can be measured with no uncertainty', a simultane-
tors a~ and a2 achieved by coupling of the original sys- ous measurement can be performed on both the in-phase
tem to two systems described by operators x and y, and and quadrature components, or on the amplitude or
by measurement of x and y. The normalized output phase. The uncertainty principle is obeyed by virtue of
operators x and y for the measurement of two input the fact that noise was introduced in the amplification
operators ai and a2 by means of linear coupling to the process.
system are The other type involves directly simultaneous measure-
x=a]+3, (3.1) ments on the two noncommuting
preamplification.
variables with no
An example is the beam splitter fol-
X=~2+&- (3.2) lowed by measurements of the in-phase component on one
output port of the beam splitter, of the quadrature com-
3 and 8 are internal noise operators. An ideal measure-
ponent at the other output port. A quantum nondemoli-
ment requires
tion measurement of photon number, followed by a phase
(x ) = (a~ ) and therefore (A ) =0, (3.3) measurement is another example. Heterodyne detection
resembles the high gain amplifier system foHowed by a
(y ) = (a2 ) and therefore (8 ) =0 . (3.4) detector. The analysis of heterodyne detection always as-
Since it is assumed that x and y are simultaneously mea- sumes effectively a high gain so that the currents pro-
sured by the two detectors, they must commute: duced in the photodetector can be treated classically. In
effect, every measurement of a quantum observable is per-
0= [x,y] = [a &, a2]+ [a ~, 8]+[A, a2]+ [A, B] formed by instruments that operate (at their output) in a
classical environment, as pointed out by Bohr.
[al a2]+[A»] (3.5)
An amplifier with different gains Gi and 62, for the
where the third equality uses the fact that the input in-phase component a& and quadrature component a2,
operators and the internal mode operators are independent respectively, can be viewed as either a component of a

simultaneous measurement of two noncommuting observ- The mean square signal output is then
ables if Gl »1
and G2 »1,
or as a component of a sin-
)'
gle observable measurement, if one of the gains is close to
unity or less than unity. It is an easy matter to set up the
&~l, .ff&'=,
Gi '.ff&'=,
&b, &'
' &~2,
&b,
G2
(4.6)
general formalism for this amplifier type which then
and the noise output is, in the two components
serves as a means of comparison for all measurement ap-
par ati.
.
&~", «) =&~", &+
&aF', )
G(
(4.7)
IV. THEORY OF A LINEAR, PHASE-SENSITIVE
AMP LIFIER «. . = «. &+ (SF,')
', «&
,
',
G2
(4.8)
In this section we ~rite down the general theory of a
linear, phase-sensitive amplifier with gairi 6& for the Here it is assumed again that a and F are uncorrelated.
(power of the) in-phase component al and 62 for the The high gain phase-sensitive amplifier with Gl »1
(power of the) quadrature component a2. The noise in- and G2 »1 is a special case of the measurement of two
troduced by the amplifier must account for the quantum- noncommuting observables as discussed in the preceding
mechanical uncertainty of a simultaneous measurement section. The normalized output operators commute when
(if G»&l and G2»1). the gains G& and G2 are high, and can be identified with
The two quadrature components of the amplified out- the observables x and y of the preceding section. Indeed,
put operators b] and b2, in terms of the input operators using (4.4)
al and a2 are given by (Haus and Mullen, 1962; Caves, [Fl F2]
1982) [+ l, eff~122, eff] = [al, a2]+
G1G2
+G a +F1,
b 1 —— 1 1 (4. 1)
i i 1
—
b2 QG2a2+F2 . V'G1G2
Here, F and F2 are
1 the (internal-mode) fluctuation i 1
operators. The mode operators b&, b2 and a~, a2 must (4.9)
2 QG162
both satisfy the boson commutation relations
l Thus, when +6162 »1,
then the two observables com-
[+1 ~2] [bl b2]= 2 ' (4.3) mute and can be measured independently, We can see
from the preceding derivation that conservation of com-
because they are both operator (excitation) amplitudes of mutation relations of the operators led to commutability
the same kind of mode (i.e., a wave packet "fed" into the of the measured observables, because the observables are
input "transmission line" emerges as an amplified wave the output operators divided by the square roots of the
packet in the output "transmission line" ). In order that gains.
(4.3) be obeyed, one finds Next, we determine the uncertainty product of ha~, f~
and b, a2 ff. Using (4.4), we obtain
[F„F,]= —
2
(1 —QG, G, ) . (4.4)
&~F1&&~F2& 1 I&[F1~F2]) I'
Here, the assumption used is that the input operators a
4 «1G2)
&
and a2 are independent of the internal fluctuation opera-

tors, [a 1, F2] = [a 2, F1]= 0. One may define the normal-
2
ized output signal by 1 1
1— (4. 10)
b) b2 16 +G, G,
+ l, eff = +2, eff = (4.5)
+G ].
~
~G 2 and from (4. 1) and (4.2)
(aF', ) (aF,')
&~+1, ff)&~ 2, ff) &~+1)+
J
«F', ) &»',
1
&+
2
&, G
, (~F', ) «F', )
1 2
)—16 + 16 1 — 1
+G G2
+2 16 1—
QG G2
1
16 QG, G2
(4. 11)

The equality holds when the input is a minimum uncer- dences on gain of the internal fluctuations.
tainty state, and when The linear, phase-sensitive amplifier with 6»&l
and
(aF', ) G2 ~~1 is a genera1 example of a measurement apparatus
G]
=(«, (4. 12) that measures two noncommuting observables simultane-
and ously. Specific examples are the laser amplifier,
(aF', ) parametric amplifier, four-wave mixer, etc. In the next
=(«', ) . (4. 13) section we look in more detail at "devices" for a simul-
2 taneous measurement and compare them with the results
Equation (4. 11) is similar to (3.8), but with a difference. of this section.
If the product of gain coefficients 6~62 does not satisfy
the condition of 6~G2 && 1, then the uncertainty product
can be smaller than 4. This seems to be in contradiction V. "DEVICES" FOR SIMULTANEOUS
with the general quantum limit for a simultaneous mea- MEASUREMENT OF TWO NONCOMMUTlNG
surement discussed in the preceding section. The reason OBSERVAB LES
for this discrepancy is that a classical measurement free
of additive noise can be performed only when 6~62 &&1. A. The ideal laser amplifier
Indeed, according to (4.9) a off and a2, rr do not commute
~
and, therefore, cannot be measured simultaneously, when An ideal laser amplifier, with gain produced by a per-
G] 62 is not much greater than unity. fectly inverted medium, can be described by equations
The gain factors QG~ and +62 suggest a classifica- analogous to (4. 1) with 6& — 62. It is a linear, phase-
tion of the amplifiers studied in this section. If QG, and preserving amplifier.
+62 are independent of a and a2, the amplifier is linear
&
The output operator b=b]+ib2 may be written in
and belongs to one of three categories (Caves, 1982): terms of the input operator a =a~+ia2,
Q G~ —QGz (phase-preserving amplifier),
b=VGa+F, (5. 1)
Q 6 ——+62 (phase-conjugate
~ amplifier),
(phase-sensitive amplifier), where I'=I']+iI'2 is the noise operator. In order to
preserve ihe commutation relations
In the special case of G~G2 —1, the amplifier does not
add noise [see (4.4)] and the uncertainty product of (4. 11) [b, b+] = [a, a+] = 1, (5.2)
is reduced to —,', . The product 6~G2 can be kept equal to one must have
unity by making G~ — I/Gz and 6& & l. In this case a~
can be measured with no additive noise and the informa- [F, F+]=1—6 . (5.3)
tion on a2 is sacrificed. Takahashi (1965) was first to dis- When 6 & 1 (attenuation), F denotes a zero-point fluctua-
"
),
cuss a degenerate parametric amplifier as such an amplif- tion added by a "loss oscillator. For a gain medium,
ier. Caves (1982) discussed it again recently.
There is another mode for an ideal single observable
G ~ 1, Iand I'+ change their roles as creation and an-
nihilation operators, and I" + denotes a zero-point fluctua-
measurement (Yurke and Denker, 1984). It is tion annihilation operator. This relation can be interpret-
(m', (SF', ) ed in another way. The expectation value for b+b with a
G2
»(«2) . (4. 14) coherent state a ) into the signal channel, a a )
=a a), and a vacuum state for the noise, (FF+ ) =0, is
~ ~
The measurement of a& is ideal, but the information on ~
az is lost. A parametric amplifier with a zero-mean

squeezed state fed into the idler channel will be treated as
(a b+b a) =(6 —1)( a +1)+ ~a
~ ~ ~ ~ ~
. (5.4)
an example later on. Figure 3 summarizes the depen- For every induced signal photon there is added one spon-
taneously emitted noise photon. This reasoning was used
Internal-mode
fluctuations in the early days of the maser to predict maser noise per-
formance (Shimoda, Takahashi, and Townes, 1957;
Strandberg, 1963). An injection-locked laser oscillator
has the same quantum limit, even though the signal gains
I/2
are different for in-phase and quadrature-phase com-
ed
or pa}f ponents (Haus and Yamamoto, 1984).
I /4 —————————— ——————
phase-preserving
0 I
amplifier
I I
signal gain B. Parametric amplifier and four-wave mixer
0 I 2 6 7 8
phase-sensitive The input to a parametric amplifier and a four-wave

ampli f ler
{Gi G~= I) mixer consists of two modes. A signal wave at co, and an
FIG. 3. Internal-mode fluctuations vs signal gain for a phase idler wave at u;, that are coupled with each other by
preserving amplifier, a phase-conjugate amplifier, a phase- second- and third-order nonlinear processes produced by
sensitive amplifier, and "balanced detector pair. " the intense pump wave at co&. The basic configuration is

shown in Fig. 4. Energy conservation requires

(5. 12)
co, +co; =co& parametric amplifier,
m, +m; =2m& four-wave mixer . (5.6) A simultaneous measurement of a, ~ and a, z can be
If the pump wave is in a coherent state and its intensity is achieved for a coherent state input when a; is in a con-
sufficiently high, it can be treated as a classical wave. ventional vacuum state 0). If the input to the idler is a
~
The evolution equations for the signal and idler waves are zero-mean squeezed state such that (b, a;& ) (& (b.a, t ),
(Yariv and Louisell, 1966) then no noise is added by the internal fluctuations. Of
course, a measurement of the conjugate variable becomes
b, =v Ga, +V'6 —la;+, (5.7) impossible because the noise (by, ) goes to infinity. The
b;=VG —1 a,++VGa;, (5.8) measurement "degenerates" into that of a single observ-
able with no additional noise.
where a, (b, ) and a;(b;) are input (output) operators for Suppose the idler channel is taken as the output. Then
the signal and idler waves, and V is the signal gain. 6 the device is a phase-conjugate linear amplifier with sig-
nal gain of QG~ ——— +62 ——v'6 —1. The mean and
:
Suppose the signal channel is taken as the output. The
device is a phase-preserving linear amplifier with signal variance of a normalized output y; =b; /V'6 —1 are
gain of QG~ +62 — —
v G. The mean and variance of a
normalized output y, b, /V —are 6 (5. 13)
(5.9)
(5. 14)
«y,', &=«.,', &+ 1-—
6 (5. 10)
(y 2) = —&u, 2& (5.15)
(S.l 1)
(5.16)
nonlinear medium (x,x(&) (&)

) The result is the same as that of the linear phase-
bs
signal / preserving amplifier in the limit of high signal gain
/ /// / /, / //// / / / ////r'///////0. Qp
' PumP
6 »1. However, there is a subtle difference. As shown
in Fig. 3, a phase-conjugate linear amplifier is more noisy
idler
than a phase-preserving linear amplifier unless the signal
a,
gain is high.
(Q) Parametric amplifier A degenerate four-wave mixer is shown in Fig. 4(b),
Four-wove rnixer where the signal, idler, and pump waves are at the same
frequency. There are still two input modes az and bL.
The evolution equations are (Yuen and Shapiro, 1979)
pump wave l
probe wave l
bg ——
V Gag+e' V'G —1bL+, (5. 17)
QR = bR
Q
L L al. VGbl. +e' V—
6 —lag+, (5. 18)
probe wave 2
pump wave 2 Since (5. 17) and (5. 18) are of the same form as (5.7) and
(5.8), the degenerate four-wave mixer performs like the
(b) Degenerate four-wave mixer
nondegenerate parametrix amplifier.
The above result can be applied to any optical amplifier
pump wove l with a parametric interaction process, among several bo-
sonic modes, such as the Raman amplifier and the Bril-
QR louin amplifier. The internal-mode fluctuations are al-
ways added to the signal during such an arnplification
b„ process. They are the zero-point fluctuations of a lattice
vibrational mode (optical phonon) in the Raman amplif-
C
ier, and the zero-point fluctuations of an acoustic phonon
pump wove 2 lOO lo mirror
mode in the Brillouin amplifier (Louisell, Yariv, and Sieg-
(c) Cavity degenerate four-wave mixer man, 1961). The effects of quantum noise of a pump
FIG. 4. Basic configurations of (a) a parametric amplifier, {b) a wave and of an internal lass are not included in the above
degenerate four-wave mixer, and (c} a cavity degenerate four- discussion, because they are not fundamental limiting fac-
wave mixer. tors.

C. Heterodyning by the finite quantum efficiency of the photodetector,

respectively. An analogous relation holds for the quadra-
Yuen and Shapiro (1980) have developed the detailed ture fluctuations (b,y, ) with subscripts 1 changed to 2.
theory of heterodyning with a' photon detector, including Here the beating noise between the coherent excitation of
the cases of heterodyning with squeezed states as the in- the signal wave and the zero-point fluctuations (Shapiro,
put in either the signal channel, idler channel, or both. 1985) is neglected.
The schematic is shown in Fig. 5. The beam splitter com- In the limit of and c.—
g~1 +1, but still preserving the
bines the incoming signal wave with the local oscillator local oscillator gain much larger than unity, Eq. (5.21)
wave. The local oscillator is assumed to be much more and the analogous expression for ( by, ) reduce to
intense than the incoming signal. The photon detector
has quantum efficiency q. (~y,'& =&~~,'i &+(« i &, (5.22)
The analysis of Yuen and Shapiro can be summarized (~y,'&=(~~ 2&+(~a p) . (5.23)
in a set of simple equations that give the expectation
value and the mean square fluctuations of the current in Equations (5. 19), (5.20), (5.22), and (5.23) are identical
the signal channel. The current variable y is so normal- with (5.9) — (5. 12), in the limit when the gain in the latter
ized that its expectation value gives the number of pho- goes to infinity, G~oo. Thus the heterodyne receiver
tons detected in one observation time interval. The performs like a parametric amplifier, followed by a
current has an in ph-ase (cosine) component y„and a noise-free detector (a practical detector can be considered
quadrature (sine) component y, . The expectation values noise free if preceded by an amplifier of high gain).
are Equations (5.22) and (5.23) suggest that heterodyning is
an abstract quantum measurement of a, +a;+ and that
(5. 19) the in-phase and quadrature parts of y commute and can
(5.20) be measured simultaneously. It has been argued, however,
that there is an uncertainty product of order co,~/coo for
and the mean square fluctuations are the simultaneous measurement of y, and y, (Caves, 1981).
&~y. ') =«.,', &+&~.,', &
D. The beam splitter

+ '(&», &+(»,', ))+ (5.21)
The beam splitter followed by two independent single
The terms in (5.21) represent the in-phase noise of the sig- quadrature measurements does not incorporate any gain
nal wave, the zero-point fluctuations of the vacuum before detection. (As pointed out earlier, the detection
modes in the image band of the signal arm, the zero-point process reduces the output to a classical observable whose
fluctuations in the signal and image bands of the local os- determination is not subject to uncertainty. ) It differs in
cillator arm, and the zero-point fluctuations introduced this respect from the amplifier-detector apparatus and its
noise has a different origin from that of the amplification
process.
A beam splitter followed by two independent single
B.s. (s) quadrature measurements is shown in Fig. 6. Practical
Q ( ~F)
Signol P. D. detectors for single quadrature measurements will be dis-
arm (q)
Qi ~~o o'I F} cussed in the next section. It might be optical degenerate
heterodyning (homodyning), degenerate parametric ampli-
&1 ~~o 'uIF } ~o~c"o+ ~IF} fication, or cavity degenerate four-wave mixing. All of
b (~ sin (~IF t}
LocQI oscillator Qrm
c measurement detector
JI o
signal
arm
QP Ql)F
n b detector
signal (system} l b( meosurement
b, os
loco l
osci l l o tor
Qrm
FIG. 5. Basic configuration of an optical heterodyne receiver.

There are two modes in the signal arm, an input signa1 a„and a internal fluctuations
vacuum mode a; in image band coo — A@IF. There are three
modes in the local oscillator arm, a local oscillator wave bI and FIG. 6. A beam splitter followed by two independent single
two vacuum modes b; and b, . quadrature measurements.

these are free from excess noise. Oliver (1962) was first to probe wave produced by the signal wave is proportional to
consider this type of simultaneous measurement, in which the signal photon number X, :
he assumed two optical homodyne receivers each per-
forming a single quadrature measurement. Unfortunately q&~ =~FN, , (5.32)
he obtained the incorrect conclusion that the Heisenberg where F is a constant proportional to the third-order non-
uncertainty principle can be realized by such a detector by linear coefficient g' ', the interaction length L, and the
erroneously dropping a factor of 4 in the noise calculation signal and probe frequencies. Any phase shift produced
for the photon number. The operators for the two output on the probe wave by the probe photon number fluctua-
arms of the beam splitter are tion can be either canceled by passing the probe wave
=E' a, +(1 —s)' through a Kerr medium with opposite sign of X' ', or can
b a;, (5.24)
be avoided through proper use of resonant excitations.
c= —(1 —e) 1/2 a+a 1/2 a;, (5.25) The expectation value of N, is
where a; is the vacuum mode incident on the beam
splitter from the open port which is indicated by "internal
fluctuations" in Fig. 6.
&N. &=
~ (q,
The measurement accuracy
) .
of %, is limited by the
(5.33)
Suppose that a, is inferred from a measurement in the

& natural fluctuations of yz to
output arm (b) of the beam splitter and a, 2 is inferred
from the output arm (c). Then, e should be chosen to be
to get equal accuracies in the two measurements. If
.
&»,'». . —(&q,') . (5.34)
one defines the variables to be measured by If (b, p~ ) is made very small, then the accuracy of the
measurement is correspondingly increased. In the limit of
(5.26) ( b, q~ ) /F ~0,
this measurement scheme can be con-
sidered as the quantum nondemolition measurement of
and photon number. Repeated measurements performed on
the same wave packet at different positions and times give
Q2 eff —v'1C2— —W2CZ (5.27) the same value of photon number. The probe acts on the
e signal wave by its own photon number fluctuations. A re-
one obtains [a ~,ff, ap eff] — [a, ~, as2]+ [a; ~, a;2] =0. lation of the form (5.32) holds with subscripts s and p in-
This is the same relation as (3.5). Furthermore, terchanged. Therefore, the measurement introduces a
signal-phase perturbation
(&$, ff&=&~, ~& (5.28)
( &P, = ~, 2 & (5.29)
&aq,'& „,=(aN,'&r. (5.35)
ff & &
If the probe wave is in a minimum uncertainty (coherent)
and state we obtain
( «], ff= ( «,'i +
& & & « (5.30) (»,')(aq,') =-, . '
(5.36)
. «.
&«', , «) = ,', &+ «. ,', ) . (5.31) Thus~
This is of the same form as the relations for the (»s ) meas ( ~q s ) meas + 4 (5.37)
parametric amplifier of high gain. Here the additional The phase perturbation produced by the measurement and
noise contributions arise from the coupling to the zero- the uncertainty in the measurement of photon number
point fluctuations of the "unused" input port of the beam obey the minimum uncertainty 'product.
splitter. The quasi-QND measurement of photon number with a
finite measurement accuracy can be part of a measure-
E. Quasiquantum nondemolition measurement ment of two noncommuting variables if the wave emerg-
followed by phase measurement ing from the QND measurement apparatus is subjected to
a phase measurement. The signal enters the QND mea-
One possible configuration of the quantum nondemoli- surement apparatus with fluctuations ( b N, );„and
tion measurement of photon number is shown in Fig. 2(a) (b, qr, );„. The fluctuation at the output of the apparatus
(Imoto, Haus, and Yamamoto, 1985). A different config- are
uration based on similar principles was discussed by Bra-
ginsky and Vyatchanin (1981, 1982). A signal wave prop-
(»,')„,=(»,');„+(», ) „,, (5.38)
agates along an optical Kerr medium without suffering
any loss. The refractive index of the Kerr medium,
.
(~q,'&. .= &~q,'&;„+(&q,') ... , (5.39)
changed by the signal wave intensity, is probed as a phase their uncertainty product is
shift of the probe wave passing through the Kerr medi- . .
&»,'&. . ~q,'&. .& '+ (»,'&.. .(~q,'),
& —, . .
um. Thus the photon number of the signal wave can be
measured nondestructively. The phase shift yz of the +&»,'&, .&~&.'& ... . (5.40)

Y. Yarnamoto and H. A. Haus: Preparation. . . of optical quantum states
The equality sign holds when the incoming signal is in a The signal gain for the a, component is
+G~ —e"=v G + v'G —1 and the signal gain for the a, z
~
minimum uncertainty state,

component is +Gz —e "=v G — &G —1, which corre-
(5.41) sponds to loss. The normalized output = b, &l+G&
y&—
When we introduce (5.37) and further use (5.41) we find and y, =b, zl+Gz satisfy
that (b N, ) «, ( hy, ) «, reaches a minimum of 1 when the &=&a, &&, (6.6)
&yi
adjustment is made (b, y, );„=(hq&, ) „,
. This shows
&~y) & =&&a.') &, (6.7)
that the quasi-QND measurement of photon number, fol-
lowed by a phase measurement, under proper adjustment
(6.8)
of the measurement conditions leads to a doubling of the
noise associated with the in-phase and quadrature com- (b,y'z) =(«,', ) . (6.9)
ponents, or photon number and phase.
Equations (6.7) and (6.9) suggest that a degenerate
parametric amplifier measures a, and a, 2 without excess
&
YI. QUANTUM NOISE OF SINGLE noise. As discussed in Sec. V, the internal-mode fluctua-
QUADRATURE MEASUREMENT DETECTORS tions vanish if 6~62 is equal to unity. A degenerate
parametric amplifier satisfies this condition. However, the
There are three single quadrature measurement detec- quadrature component, a, z is actually attenuated and can-
tors: optical degenerate heterodyne detection, the degen- not be measured. Therefore the performance of the de-
erate parametric amplifier, and the cavity degenerate generate parametric amplifier at high gain is the same as
four-wave mixer. that of degenerate optical heterodyning.
The output signal b, of a degenerate parametric ampli-
fier is in a squeezed state with quadrature noise magni-
A. Degenerate heterodyning (homodyning) tudes (bb, &) =e "l4 and (bb, q) =e "l4 that satisfy
the minimum uncertainty product of (hb, ) (b, b, z ) =+, . &
Degenerate heterodyne detection measures only one

component of the signal wave (Haus and Townes, 1962;
Oliver, 1962). The operation of the detector is contained C. Cavity degenerate four-wave mixer
in that of the heterodyne detector with signal and idler
channels merged. This means that the noise in the signal Suppose the unused port of the degenerate four-wave
channel and the idler channel are one and the same and mixer, bI in Fig. 4(b), is closed by a perfectly reflecting
must be counted only once. Instead of (5.22) and (5.23), mirror as shown in Fig. 4(c). Then we have
one has bR bL (6. 10)
(Ay', )=(«,', ) (6. 1) With (5. 19), (5.20), and (6. 10), the output mode aI is ex-
for an in-phase detector, and pressed by (Yurke, 1984)
—v G'a~ +e'~KG' —la~+,
(~yz) =(«,'z) (6.2) aL (6. 1 1)
for the quadrature detector. Of course, where the overall signal gain v G' is now given by
&=&a, ~) (6.3) v'G'= (6.12)

2—
&y~
6
for the in-phase detector, and
Note that (6. 11) has the same form as (6.5) for the degen-
(yz &
= &a, z) erate parametric amplifier, when p =0.
for the quadrature detector.

These relations determine the signal-to-noise ratio, NOISE OF PHOTON NUMBER DETECTORS
which in turn fixes the channel capacity achievable with
degenerate heterodyne detection. A. Photomultiplier
The normalized variance of the output photon number

B. Degenerate parametric amplifier fluctuations for a photomultiplier is (Schockley and
Pierce, 1938)
A degenerate parametric amplifier is a special case of a
parametric amplifier in which the signal frequency is
equal to half of the pump frequency, co, = —,co&. The evo-
'
lution equations for the signal and idler waves, (5.7) and (~n z) „=(an')+ (n ) S' g(g —1) (7 1)
(5.8), are reduced to the following single equation:
Here (b.n ) is the variance of an input signal, (g ) is the
b, =v Ga, +v'G —la,+=e "a, ~+ie "a, z . (6.5) signal gain at each multiplication stage, M = (g ) is the

overall gain, m is the number of multiplication stages and When the maximization is carried out one finds (Landau
5 =&g & —&g& is the mean-square deviation of gain. In and Lifshitz, 1959) that P(n) should satisfy the distribu-
the limit of high gain, M, &g»&1 and 5 =&g& (the tion
secondary electron emission rate is Poissonian), the 'n
second term of (7. 1) vanishes. Therefore, a photomulti- P(n)= &n&
(8.3a)
plier can approach an ideal photon counter. Note that
unity quantum efficiency is assumed in (7.1).
The maximum entropy for this distribution is
8. Avalanche photodiode H, „=&n &ln 1+

&n&
1
+ln(1+ &n &) . (8.3b)
The normalized variance of the output photon number This is the maximum entropy of a system of & n & photons
fluctuations for an avalanche photodiode is (McIntyre, normalized by the Boltzmann constant.
1965) The average number of photons is
&n&=&n, &+&n, &, (8 4)
where &n, & is the number of thermal photons and is ob-
(7 2) tained from
Here k is the ratio of electron and hole ionization coeffi-
&n, &= (8 5)
cients and M is the overall gain. In the ideal limit of exp(fuu /k T ) —1
k=O and M »1,the second term of (7.2) reduces to and if the average power of the signal is P, &n, & is given
&n &. Therefore, an avalanche photodiode does not ap-
by
proach an ideal. photon counter, even when the ratio of
ionization coefficients k is zero, and the quantum effi- &n, &=
ciency is unity.
A new structure for a noise-free avalanche photodiode Here r ' is the arrival rate of the independent modes
was proposed (Capasso, 1983) that has spatially confined which constitute the signal wave. We shall define the ar-
avalanche regions and, therefore, has the same charac- rival rate as a function of the channel bandwidth 8 in the
teristics as a photomultiplier. next section.
According to the negentropy principle of information
Vill. QUANTIZATION OF SHANNON'S (Brillouin, 1956), the maximum amount of information I
CHANNEL CAPACITY that can be extracted from signal states is equal to the
difference between the total entropy (8.3) and the (residu-
The maximum amount of information that can be car- al) noise entropy which is
ried by quantized electromagnetic waves is derived in this 1
section. The derivation is based on the negentropy princi- H=ln(1+&n, &)+&n, &ln 1+ (8.6)
n,
ple of information by Brillouin (1956) and the sampling
theorem of Nyquist (1928). The result can be applied to Taking the difference between (8.5) and (8.6) one obtains
the information capacity of any kind of band-limited bo-
sonic mode. I =H, „H=(&n, &+ &—
n, &)ln 1+
n,
1
+ n,
A. The negentropy of information

+ln 1+
The entropy S of a single mode of an electromagnetic
wave with an average number of photons & n & is given by
the maximum of the expression —&n, &in 1+ 1
(8 7)
S H= —QP(n)lnP(n)— (8. 1)
k
under the constraints B. Quantum-mechanical channel capacity
QP(n) =1 (8.2a) and information capacity of single photon
The channel capacity is the product of the maximum

amount of information I
of each mode and the arrival
gnP(n)=&n & . (8.2b) rate B= lie, where r is the time-interval occupied by
each mode:

Y. Yamamoto and H. A. Haus: Preparation. . . of optical quantum states
be sent at arbitrary times without other accompanying

1
C=B ((n, )+(n, ))ln 1+ photons within a very long time interval (PPM), then this
ns + n,
single photon can carry an amount of information which
increases logarithmically with the ratio of the duration of
(n, ) the wave packet to the time interval. In order to deter-
+ln 1+ (—
n, )ln 1+
1+ n, ng mine the arrival of the wave packet, however, a band-
width is required which is much greater than the arrival
rate of the photons.
In the limiting case of low temperature,
channel capacity reduces to
(n, ) « (n, ), the The ultimate information capacity (8. 12) is realized
only when the channel capacity per unit bandwidth (chan-
nel efficiency) is sacrificed enormously:
C = 8 ln(
1
1+ ( n, ) ) + ( n, ) ln 1+ (8.9) C %co %co
=4X 10
(n, 8 ' kT kT
(8. 13)
This photon channel capacity was derived by Stern (1960), A system with signal transmission via properly prepared
Gordon (1962), Levedev and Levitin (1963), Takahashi photon number eigenstates, and detection of photons with
(1965), and She (1968). The first term is the product of ideal photon counters that are, according to Sec. VII free
the mode arrival rate 8 and the logarithm of the number of noise, achieves the channel capacity (8.9) for
of photons per mode plus one. This part of the informa-
tion predominates in the limit of large photon number
( n, )« ( n, ). We used photon number states for the pur-
poses of analysis. If the transmission is accomplished by
and is associated with the wave nature of the photons. preparation of states other than photon number states, the
The second term is the product of the arrival rate of pho- channel capacity may, and in general does, differ from
tons, 8(n, ), and the logarithm of the number of modes (8.9). Yet it can never exceed (8.9) which provides the
per photon 1/(n, ) plus one. This information is carried ideal limit. %'e shall look at this issue in greater detail in
by the particle property of the photons and predominates the next sections.
when the number of photons per mode is smaller than un-
ity. C. Sampling theorem and bandwidth
The information which can be carried by a single pho-
ton is given by Because the proper interpretation of the channel band-
width 8 and the arrival rate r ' of an independent mode
C
(
——
ln 1+(
1
+(
1
)ln(l+(n )). (8. 10) is crucial to the results of this paper, we review here brief-
= 1/v. .
) ) ly the considerations that lead to the relation 8
Suppose one starts with a baseband signal with a square
«1,
)
In the limit of small photon number, (n, ) (8. 10)

spectrum centered around zero frequency. The Fourier
goes to infinity. That is, a single photon can transmit an
transform of the flat spectrum extending from co= ~8
infinite amount of information in this limit.
to co = m'8 is proportional to sin( m Bt /vrBt ) as shown in
In the opposite limiting case of (n, )
nel capacity reduces to
«
(n, ), the chan- Fig. 7(a). A sequence of Nyquist functions displaced by
C=B(n, )ln 1+ 1
(n )
=8(n,' } kT— . (8. 11)
disptaced Nyquist
function
The information which can be transmitted by a single 7= I/O

photon is now finite:
vrB
C Acu
'
8(n, ) kT
{a)
This number corresponds to about 32 nat/photon (46
bit/photon) for a wavelength of 1.5 pm and a temperature
of 300 K. Pierce (1978) obtained (8. 12) for the specific
scheme using a coherent state, pulse position modulation
(PPM), and photon counting detection. The derivation of
(8. 10) and (8. 12) shown above does not assume any specif-
ic modulation-demodulation scheme and quantum state
and, therefore, sets an upper limit on the information ui lPB
capacity by any selection of quantum states, modulation
Filter bandWldth
schemes and detection types.
The fact that the information per photon can go to in- {b)
finity in the absence of thermal radiation may be made FIG. 7. The spectra of a baseband time function and a carrier
plausible as follows. If the wave packet of the photon can time function and their Fourier transforms.
Rev. Mod. Phys. , VOI. 58, No. 4, October 1986

r= 1/B reproduces fully any bandwidth-limited function servable in the transmission and reception, one degree of
confined to the spectral width B/2 (positive part of spec- freedom.
trum) (Nyquist, 1928). Each Nyquist function corre- In the next section we present the channel capacity for
sponds to a mode which carries the information (8.7). the channel in which both amplitude and phase are used
If the spectrum is centered at coo»2mB, then the Ny- for transmission.
quist function appears as in Fig. 7(b). A displacement by
r= I/B of the Nyquist function produces a new Nyquist
function orthogonal to the original one. Again, one may IX. CHANNEL CAPACITY OF CONTINUUM
represent a general band-limited time function as a super- CHANNEL
position of Nyquist functions displaced by r = 1/B.
Each mode has two degrees of freedom, phase, and am- When the transmission of information is accomplished
plitude, reflected in the fact that the amplitudes of the by preparation of coherent states, or squeezed states, the
Nyquist function are complex. However, this does not transmitted observables can assume a continuum of
imply that the channel capacity is given by multiplying values. Of course, both the prepared states, and the mea-
(8.7) with the arrival rate times the number of degrees of surement of two complementary observables are subject to
freedom 2B. The reason for this is the following: The noise which imposes an upper limit on the achievable
derivation of (8.8) assumes that the states can be prepared channel capacity.
for transmission and then measured in a noise-free
manner. This is possible, in principle, with number states,
the measurement of which can be performed ideally with A. Joint conditional probability and mutual
no noise associated with the measurement as seen in Sec. information
VII. The measurement of phase and amplitude cannot be
performed simultaneously without the introduction of ad- Let us suppose that the two quadrature components a &
ditional uncertainty (noise) beyond that associated with and a2 of the signal are used for the transmission of in-
the uncertainty principle as discussed in the theory of formation. The joint conditional probability of the output
simultaneous measurements of two quadrature com- events, given (a ) and (aq ) and the measurement uncer-
&
ponents. Therefore, Eq. (8.8) implies the use of one ob- tainties (cr~) and (cr~), is
P(x, y; (a, ), (a, ) ) =

2m((cr)
. . )'. ,
1
o2
exp (9.1)
The noise (or residual) entropy H for the above signal with (a~ ) and (az) is
H =— ff P(x,—
y;(a~ ), (az))ln[P(x, y;(a&), (az))]dx dy
=ln2n. + —,' ln(o. ', )+ —,' ln(o', &+1 . (9.2)
The maximum entropy that the signal can possess is cal- B. Channel capacity of coherent state
culated for a Gaussian distribution with zero mean and
variances (X&) and (X2): Although a coherent state has the two quadrature fluc-
2 2
tuations («~ =(«z)
) = ~, the simultaneous measure-
P(x, y) =
2 (&X')&X'&)'"
2 z, exp
2(X') 2(X')
p ment of the two quadrature components introduces addi-
tional noise according to (4. 11)
(aF', )
The maximum entropy is then given by
(9.3)
&~&) .
=(«&,l, efr&= —
4
+ G
(9.6)
H, „=ln2m+ '
—,ln ~
'
( X ) + —,ln ( X2 ) + 1 . (9.4) (cr2) (~a&, ff) +
(AF2 )
(9.7)
4 G2
When the signal and noise are independent, the channel
capacity is The minimum uncertainty product for such additional
noise was shown to be
C =BI =B(H, „H)=B —ln &~i)—+ —ln 1
(aF', ) (aF', )
(9.8)
G) 62
(9.5)
The minimization of the noise (or residual) entropy (9.2)
The variances of the noise (o&) and (oz) are set by the under the constraints (9.6) —(9.8) requires ( AF ) /G
quantum noises of the signal and detector. =(b,F2)/G2 — — „.
The maximum entropy (9.4) is calcu-
q ~

lated by the relation 1

(9.18)
(ri&+&r2& =(n, &+I . (9.9)
4(2(n,)+ 1)
2(n, )+1
Here the additive 1 on the right-hand side of (9.9) stems b, a@ (9.19)
from the quantum noise of the signal and the internal-
4
mode of the detector. The maximization of the channel (F~ ) =0 (single quadrature measurement) . (9.20)
capacity (9.5) under these constraints is
Equations (9.18) and (9.19) show that the overall state
C=B ln(1+ (n, )) . (9.10) which maximizes the signal-to-noise ratio (Yuen and
Shapiro, 1980) is optimum in terms of the channel capaci-
The signal modulation should condition
satisfy the
ty.
(r&) =(r2) = —,'((n, )+1). number of
The maximum
The maximum channel capacity is
bits which can be recovered by the combination of a
coherent state and a simultaneous detector is 1.44 bit per C=B 1n(1+2(n, ) ) . (9.21)
photon.
This result was obtained by Yuen (1983). The maximum
number of bits which can be recovered by the combina-
C. Channel capacity for single quadrature measurement tion of a squeezed state and a single quadrature measure-
of squeezed state ment detector is 2.88 bit per photon.
The channel capacities C, normalized by the channel
For a squeezed state with (Aa f) «(b,
az), the max- bandwidth B, are called channel efficiencies and are plot-
imization of (9.5) requires that all the useful signal energy ted in Fig. 8 as functions of the average photon number
is used for modulating (a& ). The signal consists of a se- (n, ) per mode. The channel efficiencies for the simul-
quence of squeezed states with different (a~ ) values but taneous measurement of coherent states and for the single
the same (a2) value of zero. Thermal noise is neglected quadrature measurement of squeezed states are lower than
as compared with the quantum noise (b, a t ). If each Ny- those for a photon counting measurement of photon num-
quist mode has the same noise distributions (b, a ) and ber states. The drop off in the very small photon number,
(ha2) but has different (a&) values, the ensemble of
these Nyquist modes has the Gaussian distribution:
~
(n, ) «
1, is not inherent in the signal quantum states but
stems from the inefficiency of the detectors.
3'
2(r,') D. Channel capacity for photon counting measurement
of coherent state
(9.11)
Let us consider finally the case of a signal in a coherent
(9.12) state, detected by a photon counter. The photoelectron
(9.13) statistics for the given average photon number s = ( n )
where (Fq ) and (F2 ) is the quantum noise imposed by

the detector, which satisfies (F~ ) (Fz ) = —,', . The max-
imum entropy is calculated for this Gaussian distribution.
After the measurement, the signal state is left in the state lo—
which satisfies Q3
C3
P(x, y; (a, ), (a, ) =0) ei 9.27):
on number
surement
(x —(a, ))' »& j)

lD
y& O
) (o,') )'i'
V
2m(&o', 2(o i) 2(o', &

~ lO
(9
(9.14) drature
o IO ments
(9.15) single quadrature
measurements
(9.16)
I I ) I
IO
lO' IO lo lo lo'
The residual entropy is calculated for this distribution. lO I
Photon Number per Pulse «n ~

The information is
FIG. 8. The quantum-mechanical form of Shannon's channel
capacity (8.8), the channel capacities recovered by the trvo quad-
rature measurements of a coherent state (9. 10), of a squeezed
state {9.30), by a single quadrature measurement of a squeezed
state (9.21), and by photon counting of a coherent state for a
small photon number (9.26), and for a large photon number
This value becomes a maximum when (9.27).

are Poissonian: tude) squeezed states is bounded by (8.8), and (9.26), and
— (9.27).
& SSn
P(n) = (9.22)
yg t
E. Channel capacity with beam splitter followed by
When the average number of signal photons per mode is
single quantum measurement detectors
much smaller than unity, the information per mode is
given by (Gordon, 1962)
The signal and noise quantities for a beam splitter with
I =H(y) H„(y— ), (9.23) are given in (5.28) to (5.31). The squares of the
mean amplitudes are
where H(y) is the total information and is given by the
probability P(0) that no photons are received and P(1),
the probability that one or more photons are received: ( a I, ff ) = (a2, ff ) (9.28)
H(y) = —P(0)lnP (0) —P(1)lnP(1) and fluctuations

= —Q(1 —e ')ln[Q(1 —e ')] (ba;] ) =(ba;2) =(ha, ) = (ba, 2) = ~
$ (9.29)
—[1—Q(1 —e ')]in[1 —Q(1 —e ')], (9.24) When these values are introduced in (9.5), one obtains the
channel capacity (9.10) with s= —, . The same result is
where Q is the probability of sending photons (on state)
—
and 1 Q is the probability of sending no photons (off
achieved by heterodyne detection with a coherent state.
state). The conditional probabilities are The excess noise required for a simultaneous measure-
ment of two noncommuting variables came from the
P(1),„=1—e ', P(0),„=e "open port" of the beam splitter.
When squeezed states are used, one has the choice of
O0, P(0)off —1 .
P(1) ff — putting all the information into the in-phase signal chan-
H„(y) is the c'onditional entropy per mode when the nel and decouple from the open port, setting c. = 1. In this
transmitter symbol (on or off) is known limit one obtains the result (9.21) which is also obtained
for the heterodyne detection of a squeezed state. Of
H„(y) = —Q[e 'lne '+(1 —e ')In(1 —e ')] . (9.25) course, this limit is quite uninteresting, because it is a
The maximization of (9.23) —(9.25) gives the following trivial example of the channel capacity with the signal
channel capacity in the limit of (n, ) = Qs « 1, carried by only one of two noncommuting variables and
detected by an ideal noise free detector.
1 1 A case of greater interest is when one puts all the infor-
C=BsQ ln =8(n, )ln (9.26)
mation into the in-phase signal channel, and uses a beam
sQ n,
splitter with c. = —, . In the signal channel one uses
'
The channel capacity approaches the upper bound of the squeezed states given by (9.18) and (9. 19), and the open
photon channel capacity (8.8), as the average number of port is excited by an equally squeezed ground state. Then
signal photons goes to zero as shown in Fig. 7. the channel capacity becomes
When the average number of signal photons (n, ) per
mode is much larger than unity, the channel capacity is C= —
8 in[1+2(n, )(1+(n, ) )] . (9.30)
(Gordon, 1962) 2
The same result is obtained for heterodyne detection with
C= —
B ln(n .
S) (9.27) analogously prepared states in the signal channel and the
idler channel, respectively.
In the limit of (n, ) ~~1, the channel capacity recovered
by a photon counter is one-half of the photon channel
capacity (8.8). This can be understood as follows. When X. DlSCUSSION
the average number of signal photons (n, ) is much larger
than unity, half of the information is carried in the form This paper reviewed the signal and noise properties of
of photon number and the remaining half in the form of various detection schemes. The fact that a simultaneous
phase, which is rejected in the photon counter. When measurement of two noncommuting observables leads to
(n, ) is much smaller than unity, on the other hand, the additional noise was emphasized and was demonstrated as
photon phase cannot be defined (Carruthers and Neito, a matter of principle (two simultaneously measurable
1968). In this range, all the information may be carried in quantities must be made to cornrnute and thus require ad-
the form of photon number which can be recovered by an ditive noise) and with the aid of particular device equa-
ideal photon counter. tions. The quantum noise associated with the signal
Although an amplitude-squeezed state has sub- preparation and the measurement process sets an upper
Poissonian photon statistics, the deviation from the Pois- bound for the channel capacity. This upper bound was
son distribution is not large (Yuen, 1976). The channel derived generally from the negentropy principle. Any
capacity for a photon counting measurement of (ampli- signal-state preparation and measurement scheme can

only lead to a channel capacity that is lower, or at best if the average number of photons is much larger than uni-
equal, to the limiting channel capacity. ty. The ultimate information capacity is 1.44 bit per pho-
The internal-mode fluctuations, the channel capacity, ton. All ideal detectors for a single quadrature measure-
and the information capacity for various detectors are ment are free from internal-mode fluctuations, and realize
summarized in Table I. All detectors capable of a simul- the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Such detectors can
taneous measurement of two quadrature components have recover the highest channel capacity from a squeezed
inevitable internal-mode fluctuations, which increase the state, again if the average number of photons is much
uncertainty product of the measurement by 3 dB from the larger than unity. The ultimate information capacity is
Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Such detectors can re- 2.88 bit per photon. A photon counter, on the other
hand, can reach the photon channel capacity if a photon
'
cover the highest channel capacity from a coherent state,
TABLE I. Classification of various optical measuring schemes, internal noise, channel capacity C, and information capacity
C /B(n, ) of a single photon. 0), zero-point fluctuation; 0)&, squeezed zero-point fluctuation. CS, coherent state; SS, squeezed
~ ~
state; PNS, photon number state.

Internal-mode Channel capacity C
Class Detectors (fluctuation) information capacity C/B(n, )
Balanced Heterodyning ~
0) at image band
detector beam splitter ~
0) from open port
pair
Phase Parametric amplifier ~

0) at idler band C =B 1 n(1 +( n, ) )
insensitive Degenerate 4-wave ~
0) from open port
amplifier mixer
C
Raman amplifier Optical phonon X1.44 bit
B n,
Brillouin amplifier Acoustic phonon
Laser amplifier Dipole moment
QND meas. Optical' Kerr medium Probe wave (CS)
Squeezed Heterodyning 0)p at image band C= —

B in[1+2(n,
)1( n, ) +1)]
2
~
internal
Beam splitter ~0)s from open port
mode C
Parametric amplifier 0)s at idler band X1.44 bit
~
B n,
Degenerate 4-wave mixer I 0) p
from open port
Optical Kerr medium Probe wave (SS)
{nonsqueezed)
Single Degenerate C= —
8 ln( 1+4( n, )
2
1
quadrature heterodyning
measurement Degenerate parametric C
amplifier B n,
~2. 88 bit
(CS)
Cavity degenerate 4- C =B ln(1+ 2n, )
wave mixer C ~2.
88 bit
B n,
(SS)
Photon Photomultiplier C=B ln(1+(n, ) 1+(n, )ln 1+ 1
counting (n, )
measurement C
B(n, )
(PNS)
1
Avalanche photodiode C=B(n, )ln
(n, )
C
B(n, )
(CS)

number state is prepared, and also recovers the highest Haus, H. A. , and Y. Yamamoto, 1984, Phys. Rev. A 29, 1261.
channel capacity from a coherent state, if the average Haus, H. A. , and Y. Yamamoto, 1986, Phys. Rev. A, in press.
number of photons is much smaller than unity. The effi- Helstrom, C. W. , 1976, Quantum Detection and Estimation
ciency is, however, 50% when the average number is Theory (Academic, New York).
much larger than unity. Imoto, N. , H. A. Haus, and Y. Yamamoto, 1985, Phys. Rev. A
32, 2287.
Kubo, R., 1965, Statistical Mechanics; an Advanced Course with
Problems and Solutions (North-Holland, Amsterdam).
ACKNOWlEDGMENTS Landau, L. D., add E. M. Lifshitz, 1959, Statistical Physics
(Pergamon, London/Paris), Vol. 5.
This work was supported in part by the National Sci- Levedev, D. S., and L. B. Levitin, 1963, Dokl. Akad. Nauk
ence Foundation under Grant No. 8305448-AO1-ECS. SSSR 149, 1299 [Sov. Phys. Dokl. 8, 377 (1963)].
One of the authors (Y.Y.) wants to thank F. Kanaya for Levenson, M. , R. M. Shelby, A. Aspect, M. Reid, and D. F.
his useful discussion. Walls, 1985, Phys. Rev. A 32, 1550.
Louisell, W. H. , 1973, Quantum Statistica/ Properties of Radia
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Preparation, measurement and information capacity

of optical quantum states

CONTENTS IX. Channel Capacity of Continuum Channel 1015

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

coherent states and squeezed states of large photon num- Poissonian.

respectively, are optimum. Although thyrse measurement

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Yol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

approach a sequence of coherent states. If ihe laser is operator b =pa+va+:

the displacement operation D(a):

!deal Laser &ba', & =-,'e (2. 18)

sumed to reduce one of the quadrature noises. Squeezed

eigenstate. where a is an input mode operator which is assumed to be

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

a coherent state and b is an output operator. The output probe

(2.20). Nondegenerate forward four-wave mixing followed

C. Photon number states, amplitude-squeezed states, 0

and their generation 4x IQ

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

and a2 are independent of the internal fluctuation opera-

~G 2 and from (4. 1) and (4.2)

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

The measurement of a& is ideal, but the information on ~

az is lost. A parametric amplifier with a zero-mean

phase-sensitive The input to a parametric amplifier and a four-wave

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

shown in Fig. 4. Energy conservation requires

nonlinear medium (x,x(&) (&)

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

C. Heterodyning by the finite quantum efficiency of the photodetector,

&~y. ') =«.,', &+&~.,', &

D. The beam splitter

FIG. 5. Basic configuration of an optical heterodyne receiver.

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

Suppose that a, is inferred from a measurement in the

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

minimum uncertainty state,

Degenerate heterodyne detection measures only one

&=&a, ~) (6.3) v'G'= (6.12)

for the quadrature detector.

The normalized variance of the output photon number

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

8. Avalanche photodiode H, „=&n &ln 1+

A. The negentropy of information

The channel capacity is the product of the maximum

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

be sent at arbitrary times without other accompanying

In the limit of small photon number, (n, ) (8. 10)

The information which can be transmitted by a single 7= I/O

Rev. Mod. Phys. , VOI. 58, No. 4, October 1986

P(x, y; (a, ), (a, ) ) =

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

lated by the relation 1

where (Fq ) and (F2 ) is the quantum noise imposed by

(x —(a, ))' »& j)

2m(&o', 2(o i) 2(o', &

Photon Number per Pulse «n ~

Rev. Mod. Phys. , Vol. 58, No. 4, October 1986

H(y) = —P(0)lnP (0) —P(1)lnP(1) and fluctuations