Generation of squeezed light with a monolithic optical parametric oscillator: Simultaneous achievement of phase matching and cavity resonance by temperature control

We generate squeezed state of light at 860 nm with a monolithic optical parametric oscillator. The optical parametric oscillator consists of a periodically poled KTiOPO4 crystal, both ends of which are spherically polished and mirror-coated. We achieve both phase matching and cavity resonance by controlling only the temperature of the crystal. We observe up to -8.0 +/- 0.2 dB of squeezing with the bandwidth of 142 MHz. Our technique makes it possible to drive many monolithic cavities simultaneously by a single laser. Hence our monolithic optical parametric oscillator is quite suitable to continuous-variable quantum information experiments where we need a large number of highly squeezed light beams. (C) 2010 Optical Society of America