It has been known since the seminal work of Carlton Caves, that squeezed states of light can be used to enhance precision of optical interferometry. Bill Unruh realized that one can also use it to beat the Standard Quantum Limit (SQL) in gravitational-wave interferometers, and several versions of his idea were further developed before the end of the last millennium. Observing a vibrational mode of a neutron star would provide information about its interiors, and this is one of the holy grails of neutron star astrophysics. However, one serious issue was that these ideas were only applicable in the narrow range of frequencies, because of the strong frequency dependence of the mechanical impedance of the free test mass.
At the end of 1990s, Kip Thorne became concerned that no practical scheme existed for the Quantum Nondemolition (QND) measurement in LIGO (QND in the context of LIGO means simply beating the Standard Quantum Limit). At the time, I was Kip's PhD student, and I spent part of my PhD trying fruitlessly to come up with such a scheme. There was also a group in Moscow led by Kip's old friend Vladimir Braginsky, the originator of the concepts of SQL and QND. Despite of the nearly-complete destruction of Soviet Physics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Braginsky managed to retain some talented young people in his group, and they carried out interesting research. Part of the group's research funding came from Caltech and NSF, and Kip was instrumental in securing this funding.
In 1998, Kip and I travelled to Moscow, and we had extensive discussions with Vladimir Braginsky, Michael (Misha) Gorodetsky, Farid Khalili, and Sergei Vyatchanin. Upon returning to Caltech, Kip started a study group, which met regularly and discussed various quantum-physics issues of potential relevance to LIGO. The meetings were well-attended by Caltech aficionados of Quantum Measurements. During one of the meetings, I reported on Unruh's ideas and explained the difficulties for applying them to broadband measurements. Jeff Kimble immediately had an idea about input optical filters. Kip, together with Andrei Matsko and Sergei Vyatchanin, performed detailed computations. This was the birth of KLMTV.
The input optical filters have now been built and implemented in Advanced LIGO. They will allow us to make larger part of the Universe "visible" to LIGO, and will increase the number of events observed by the gravitational-wave astronomers.