Quantum frequency conversion of vacuum squeezed light to bright tunable blue squeezed light and higher-order spatial modes

Abstract: Quantum frequency conversion, the process of shifting the frequency of an optical quantum state while preserving quantum coherence, can be used to produce non-classical light at otherwise unapproachable wavelengths. We present experimental results based on highly efficient sum-frequency generation (SFG) between a vacuum squeezed state at 1064 nm and a tunable pump source at 850 nm $\pm$ 50 nm for the generation of bright squeezed light at 472~nm $\pm$ 4~nm, currently limited by the phase-matching of the used nonlinear crystal. We demonstrate that the SFG process conserves part of the quantum coherence as a 4.2($\pm0.2$)~dB 1064 nm vacuum squeezed state is converted to a 1.6($\pm$0.2)~dB tunable bright blue squeezed state. We furthermore demonstrate simultaneous frequency- and spatial-mode conversion of the 1064-nm vacuum squeezed state, and measure 1.1($\pm$0.2)~dB and 0.4($\pm$0.2)~dB of squeezing in the TEM${01}$ and TEM${02}$ modes, respectively. With further development, we foresee that the source may find use within fields such as sensing, metrology, spectroscopy, and imaging.