NONLINEAR AND QUANTUM OPTICS USING CW OPTICAL PARAMETRIC OSCILLATORS

We have experimentally studied the various dynamical regimes appearing in a Triply Resonant Optical Parametric Oscillator, and observed regi mes of bistability and instability. When the pump intensity is swept t hrough the static threshold value in the monostable region, we have ob served a phenomenon of delayed bifurcation. The measurements are in go od agreement with the theoretical predictions. We have also predicted that the pump beam reflected by this triply resonant OPO may be signif icantly squeezed by the nonlinear interaction in the parametric crysta l.