Faculty of Science (FNWI) - Institute of Physics (IoP) - Van der Waals-Zeeman Institute (WZI)
Abstract
We show that the quantum-limited linewidth of a laser can be enhanced when the polarization eigenmodes of the laser resonator are nonorthogonal. For the theoretical description of this phenomenon we introduce a simple coupled two-mode model. Experimentally, we observed an enhancement of the quantum noise by a factor of 60 in a He-Xe gas laser.
