Abstract
We show that weak measurement can be used to “amplify” optical nonlinearities at the single-photon level, such that the effect of one properly postselected photon on a classical beam may be as large as that of many unpostselected photons. We find that “weak-value amplification” offers a marked improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio in the presence of technical noise with long correlation times. Unlike previous weak-measurement experiments, our proposed scheme has no classical equivalent.
- Received 30 December 2010
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.133603
© 2011 American Physical Society