Innovative Uses of Stochastic Photonic Sources

We report on the properties and applications of intense and nonconventional stochastic photonic sources based on amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) [1]. First, we describe the principle of nonlinear intensity filtering using various nonlinear filters (e.g. a modified nonlinear Mach-Zehnder interferometer). The latter can alter the properties of an intense incident ASE source in a controlled manner. In particular, we demonstrated the possibility to tailor the probability density function (PDF) <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$p(I)$</tex> ) (Fig. 1.a) as well as the second- and, in a more general sense, the <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$n$</tex> -th order degree of coherence <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$g^{(n \geq 1)}\left(\tau\right.)$</tex> ) associated with the likelihood and the correlation of the intensity fluctuations, respectively. Depending on the type of filter and its parameters, the resulting random intensity <tex xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">$I(t)$</tex> can exhibit large overshoots or smoother fluctuations.