Numerical analysis of LG33 second harmonic generation in comparison to the LG00 case

TL;DR

This paper numerically compares second harmonic generation in LG33 and LG00 modes, revealing LG33 requires significantly more pump power and predominantly produces LG66 harmonic mode, impacting squeezed light generation for gravitational wave detectors.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed numerical analysis of SHG in LG33 mode, including phase matching and efficiency, extending understanding of nonlinear optics for advanced quantum noise reduction.

Findings

LG33 mode needs 14 times more pump power than LG00 for similar SHG efficiency

SHG in LG33 mainly produces LG66 harmonic mode

Analysis covers single-pass, double-pass, and cavity-enhanced configurations

Abstract

For coating Brownian thermal noise reduction in future gravitational wave detectors, it is proposed to use light in the helical Laguerre-Gaussian LG33 mode instead of the currently used LG00 mode. However, the simultaneous reduction of quantum noise would then require the efficient generation of squeezed vacuum states in the LG33 mode. Current squeezed light generation techniques employ continuous-wave second harmonic generation (SHG). Here, we simulate the SHG for both modes numerically to derive first insights into the transferability of standard squeezed light generation techniques to the LG33 mode. In the first part of this paper, we therefore theoretically discuss SHG in the case of a single undepleted pump mode, which, in general, excites a superposition of harmonic modes. Based on the differential equation for the harmonic field, we derive individual phase matching conditions and hence conversion efficiencies for the excited harmonic modes. In the second part, we analyse the numerical simulations of the LG00 and LG33 SHG in a single-pass, double-pass and cavity-enhanced configuration under the influence of the focusing, the different pump intensity distributions and the individual phase matching conditions. Our results predict that the LG33 mode requires about 14 times the pump power of the LG00 mode to achieve the same SHG conversion efficiency in an ideal, realistic cavity design and mainly generates the harmonic LG66 mode.