Abstract

In an important 1979 paper,¹ Petermann pointed out that in certain laser-resonator geometries a typical mode may exhibit more noise than expected on the basis of the standard quantum-mechanical one-photon-per-mode prescription. It was subsequently shown by other authors (e.g., Ref. 2) that this arises because the self-reproducing field patterns that are commonly referred to as laser "modes" are not true modes of the radiation field.

© 1995 Optical Society of America