Amplifying single-photon nonlinearity using weak measurements

Phys Rev Lett. 2011 Sep 23;107(13):133603. doi: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.107.133603. Epub 2011 Sep 23.

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.