Abstract
After reviewing recent work on multiphoton direct detectionand single-photon heterodyne detection, we examine the behaviorof a multiphoton absorption heretodyne receiver. Expressions axeobtained for the detector response, signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), andminimum detectable power for a number of cases of interest. Receiverperformance is found to depend on the higher order correlation func-tions of the radiation field and on the local oscillator (LO) irradiance.Although performance similar...