PHOTON-NUMBER SQUEEZED SOLITONS FROM AN ASYMMETRIC FIBEROPTIC SAGNAC INTERFEROMETER

Direct photon-number squeezing is demonstrated, for the first time to our knowledge, in a nonlinear fiber-optic interferometer. Launching 12 6-fs solitons into a highly asymmetric Sagnac loop, the maximum photoc urrent noise reduction was 3.9 +/- 0.2 dB below shot noise, correspond ing to 6.0 +/- 0.9 dB, when corrected for linear losses. The loop is a model system for squeezing generated by the interference of two pulse s after nonlinear propagation through a fiber.