Pump-probe quantum state tomography in a semiconductor optical amplifier.

Pump-probe quantum state tomography was applied to the transmission of a coherent state through an In(Ga)As based quantum dot optical amplifier during the interaction with an optical pump pulse. The Wigner function and the statistical moments of the field were extracted and used to determine the degree of population inversion and the signal-to-noise ratio in a sub-picosecond time window.