Transient-gain-assisted noise reduction in photodetection of nonclassical light.

Abstract

The effect of transient gain in photodetection of light is studied. By treating the photoelectron multiplication as a classical, stochastic process, a generalization of the quantum Mandel formula is given. To illustrate the theory developed, the detection of sub-Poisson light from single-atom resonance fluorescence is studied. It is shown that the results may substantially differ from those predicted from the Burgess variance theorem. In particular, a reduction of noise of the photoelectric counts can be achieved even if the value of the gain rate is increased.