Homodyne locking of a squeezer

We report on the successful implementation of a new approach to locking the frequencies of an OPO-based squeezed-vacuum source and its driving laser. The technique allows the simultaneous measurement of the phase-shifts induced by a cavity, which may be used for the purposes of frequency-locking, as well as the simultaneous measurement of the sub-quantum-noise-limited (sub-QNL) phase quadrature output of the OPO. The homodyne locking technique is cheap, easy to implement and has the distinct advantage that subsequent homodyne measurements are automatically phase-locked. The homodyne locking technique is also unique in that it is a sub-QNL frequency discriminator.