Fundamental limits to the generation of highly displaced bright squeezed light using linear optics and parametric amplifiers

High-quality squeezed light is an important resource for a variety of applications. Multiple methods for generating squeezed light are known, having been demonstrated theoretically and experimentally. However, the effectiveness of these methods—in particular, the inherent limitations to the signals that can be produced—has received little consideration. Here we present a comparative theoretical analysis for generating a highly displaced squeezed light from a linear optical method—a beamsplitter mixing a squeezed vacuum and a strong coherent state—and well-studied parametric amplification methods including an optical parametric oscillator, an optical parametric amplifier, and a dissipative optomechanical squeezer seeded with coherent states. We show that the quality of highly displaced squeezed states that can be generated using these methods is limited on a fundamental level by the physical mechanism utilized; across all methods there are significant trade-offs between displacement, squeezing, and overall uncertainty. We explore the nature and extent of these trade-offs specific to each mechanism and identify the optimal operation modes for each. Finally, we identify the conditions for minimum-uncertainty squeezing in arbitrary parametric amplifying systems and show that displacing the output signal will in general violate these conditions, adding noise and degrading squeezing.