Theory of pulse propagation and four-wave mixing in a quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifier

A theory, combining the relations of pulse traveling into quantum dot (QD) semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with the four-wave mixing (FWM) theory in these SOAs, is developed. Carrier density pulsation (CDP), carrier heating (CH), and spectral hole burning (SHB) contributions on FWM efficiency are discussed. Effect of QD ground state and wetting layer are included. An additional parameter appears in the gain integral relation of QD SOAs. An equation formulating pulses in the QD SOAs is introduced. We have found that FWM in QD SOAs is detuning and is pulse width dependent. For short pulses, CH is dominant at high detunings (10–100 GHz) while at higher detunings (>100 GHz) the SHB is the dominant one. Undesired paunch behavior is shown in QD SOAs then, CDP must be reduced.     

Slow and fast light in quantum dot based semiconductor optical amplifiers

Recent progress in the field of quantum dot/dash based semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) for slow and fast light is discussed. Room temperature fast light has been obtained in InAs/InP QDash based SOAs by means of coherent population oscillation and four wave mixing (FWM) effects. Typical optical delays amount to 55 ps at 2 GHz. Growth optimization of the QDashes allowed us to achieve high modal gain, leading to very similar performances, e.g. gain and FWM efficiency, to those of a bulk SOA. A novel approach based on linear spectrograms is also introduced to measure the phase shift induced by wave mixing in an SOA.     

Nonlinear properties of quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifiers at 1.3 μm Invited Paper

The dynamics of nonlinear processes in quantum dot (QD) semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) are investigated. Using small-signal measurements, the suitabilities of cross-gain and cross-phase modulation as well as four wave mixing (FWM) for wavelength conversion are examined. The cross-gain modulation is found to be suitable for wavelength conversion up to a frequency of 40 GHz.     

Slow and fast light in quantum-well and quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiersInvited Paper

Slow and fast light in quantum-well (QW) and quantum-dot (QD) semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) using nonlinear quantum optical effects are presented. We demonstrate electrical and optical controls of fast light using the coherent population oscillation (CPO) and four wave mixing (FWM) in the gain regime of QW SOAs. We then consider the dependence on the wavelength and modal gain of the pump in QW SOAs. To enhance the tunable photonic delay of a single QW SOA, we explore a serial cascade of multiple amplifiers. A model for the number of QW SOAs in series with variable optical attenuation is developed and matched to the experimental data. We demonstrate the scaling law and the bandwidth control by using the serial cascade of multiple QW SOAs. Experimentally, we achieve a phase change of 160° and a scaling factor of four at 1 GHz using the cascade of four QW SOAs. Finally, we investigate CPO and FWM slow and fast light of QD SOAs. The experiment shows that the bandwidth of the time delay as a function of the modulation frequency changes in the absorption and gain regimes due to the carrier-lifetime variation. The tunable phase shift in QD SOA is compared between the ground- and first excited-state transitions with different modal gains.     

Analysis of format conversion from optical 16QAM to QPSK based on cascaded four-wave mixing in semiconductor optical amplifier

A scheme of format conversion from optical 16-ary quadrature amplitude modulation (16QAM) to quadrature phase shift keying (QPSK) signal based on cascaded four-wave mixing (FWM) in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) is proposed. Theoretical analysis and simulations of the format conversion scheme are conducted to validate the feasibility of the proposal. In this proposal, the phase conjugated of 16QAM signal is generated after the first FWM process in an SOA, and then the QPSK signal is converted due to the second non-degenerate FWM (ND-FWM) process in another SOA. The performance and the optimal design of the 10 Gbit/s format conversion system under various key parameters of SOAs are evaluated and discussed. Simulation results present useful to enable interconnection between backbone network and access network.     

Analysis of non-linear refractive index influences on four-wave mixing conversion efficiency in semiconductor optical amplifiers

In this paper, we have analyzed the influences of non-linear refractive index on the four-wave mixing (FWM) characteristics in semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). It has been shown that the generated FWM signal characteristics can be modified due to the variation of non-linear refractive index of the SOA's medium. The wave propagation in the SOA has been modeled using the nonlinear propagation equation taking into account gain spectrum dynamics, gain saturation, which depends on carrier depletion, carrier heating, spectral hole-burning, group velocity dispersion, self-phase modulation and two photon absorption. Simulation of optical wave evolution in the SOA has been carried out using the finite-difference beam propagation method (FD-BPM) both in time and spectral domains. Our simulation results confirm that higher FWM conversion efficiency and lower time bandwidth product are achieved for higher absolute values of non-linear refractive index. Moreover, non-linear refractive index is more efficacious for high power propagated waves in SOAs. Finally, we have studied the modification of waveguide refractive index due to the propagation of optical pulses. We have also shown that when |n₂|=1 cm²/TW, refractive index variation is in the order of 10^?4 to 10^?7 for high and low power input pulses, respectively.     

Transmission performance of 10-Gb/s DPSK WDM signals due to phase-error and four-wave mixing in SOAs

We present a complete dynamic model of semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs) including the inter-channel four-wave mixing (FWM). The model has been implemented using the time-dependent transfer matrix method (TMM) and applying the discretization scheme in both the spatial and spectral domains. In SOA-based wavelength division multiplexing transmission systems using 10-Gb/s differential phase shift keyed (DPSK) signals, the system performance due to the SOA-induced phase-error and the FWM effect has been analyzed. By the injection of a reservoir channel into SOAs, the transmission performance of non-return-to-zero (NRZ) DPSK signals can be improved through the phase-error reduction. Both the NRZ-DPSK and return-to-zero (RZ) DPSK signals are found to be suffered from the FWM-induced crosstalk. The overall nonlinear tolerance of RZ-DPSK is shown to be better than that of NRZ-DPSK.     

Generation and transmission simulation of 60 G millimeter-wave by using semiconductor optical amplifiers for radio-over-fiber systems

A novel method of the millimeter-wave (MMW) generation is proposed for Radio-over-fiber systems with low phase noise by using semiconductor optical amplifiers (SOAs). The simulation results show that the method is correct. When a pump light and a signal light are input into the SOA, the converted light induced by four-wave mixing (FWM) effect is generated. The optical MMW is generated between the signal light and converted light after filtering the pump light. The electrical MMW is obtained by beating the signal light and converted light via a photo-detector. The phase noise of the system is low because the phase difference between the signal light and converted light is stable for the FWM effect. The power of MMW is increased with the increase of the pump light power and the pump current of the SOA, is decreased with the increase of the polarization azimuths of the pump light.     

Experimental Study of Four-Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Laser Amplifier and its Application to Dispersion Compensation in Mid-Span Spectral Inversion System

Properties of four-wave mixing (FWM) in the semiconductor laser amplifier are studied experimentally in this paper. The optical phase conjugation of the mixing wave is applied to compensate the chromatic dispersion of transmission fiber. It is presented experimental results of the transmission of short optical pulses with 12-ps width over 204 km standard single mode fiber. The results confirm that mid-span spectral inversion (MSSI) employing FWM in a semiconductor laser amplifier is one of potential dispersion compensation techniques for optical transmission over standard single mode fiber with bit rate beyond 40Gb/s.     

具有非均匀零色散波长光纤中的四波混频

提出了一种分析具有非均匀零色散波长光纤中四波混频(FWM)的简便方法,导出了多段不同零色散波长组成的光纤中和零色散波长连续变化的光纤中四波混频效率的计算公式.实例计算结果表明,光纤中零色散波长分布的不均匀,会影响四波混频效率,特别是在抽运光和检测光波长间隔较大时,影响尤为显著. 关键词： 四波混频 相位匹配 零色散波长     

Experimental Study of Four Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Laser Amplifier and its Application to Dispersion Compensation in Mid Span Spectral Inversion System

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基于PolSK调制的四波混频型超快全光译码器

提出了一种新型的基于半导体光放大器（semiconductor optical amplifier, SOA）中四波混频（four-wave mixing, FWM）效应的超快全光译码器方案,方案中采用了偏振移位键控（polarization-shift-keying, PolSK）信号光.考虑SOA的偏振相关性,建立了这种全光译码器完整的偏振相关宽带理论模型.通过数值模拟的方法,从理论上实现了超快全光译码器,并研究了两输入信号光功率、SOA注入电流和SOA的偏振相关性对全光译码器输出特性的影响. 关键词： 全光译码器 偏振移位键控 四波混频 半导体光放大器     

A Novel Method for Wavelength Conversion with Dual-pump Four-wave Mixing in a Semiconductor Optical Amplifier

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Quantum cascade structure for mid-IR four-wave mixing

The design and modeling of a quantum cascade optical amplifier (QCOA) using intra-cavity non-linear interactions to achieve wavelength conversion is proposed. The model is based on the nonlinear equation coupled with Maxwell wave equations for different emission modes. In the proposed structure, four wave mixing (FWM) output exhibits a peak as a function of pump and probe frequency if they are tuned to the energy levels of the QC structure subbands. Results demonstrate that the FWM output signal power significantly depends on how subbands are engineered and interact with optical pulses which propagate in multi layer medium. In addition, we show that by adjusting pump and probe signal frequencies, FWM output power can be tuned.     

Performance analysis of optical WDM system based on unequal spaced channel allocation (USCA) scheme

Unequal spaced channel allocation (USCA) is a technique to reduce Four wave mixing (FWM). In this paper, system performance of 8 channel WDM system considering different optical transmitter formats (RZ, NRZ, Raised cosine and Gaussian) using USCA has been evaluated in terms of Q-factor. The simulation results reveal that four wave mixing is minimum for NRZ format. Also the effect of changing the laser power and increasing the bit rate has been observed.     

Terahertz-wave generation in a conventional optical fiber

We theoretically propose surface-emitted and collinear phase-matched terahertz (THz)-wave generation in a conventional optical fiber. The third-order nonlinear effect, four-wave mixing (FWM), is used to generate THz waves in an optical fiber. Surface-emitted THz-wave generation via FWM is realized using a single-mode fiber. Perfect phase matching is obtained at ~800 nm and 1.5 microm pumping, and it follows that third-order polarization in an optical fiber has the same phase at any point. In this situation, the optical fiber acts like a phased array antenna of the THz wave. Collinear phase-matching THz waves are obtained under the same conditions as for surface-emitted THz waves, and the THz wave is propagated in the silica cladding of the optical fiber. This is a promising method for realizing a reasonable THz-wave source.     

Power-independent technique to extract the dispersion parameters of an optical fiber using four wave mixing

Conventional methods which extract dispersion parameters of an optical fiber using four wave mixing rely on the measurement of optical power in the generated wavelengths, and hence are prone to measurement errors. We propose and demonstrate a power-independent method to extract the dispersion curve of a fiber using four wave mixing (FWM). The analytical equations that have been traditionally used to estimate the phase mismatch in FWM are modified to cater to low-dispersion fibers, and are verified. Experiments to obtain the dispersion curve of a low-dispersion and highly nonlinear fiber are discussed and the results are analyzed. Limitations of any FWM-based method to extract the dispersion curve of a fiber are presented for the first time.     

Four-wave mixing in long wavelength III-nitride QD-SOAs

Four wave mixing analysis is stated for quantum dot semiconductor optical amplifiers (QD SOAs) using the propagation equations (including nonlinear propagation contribution) coupled with the QD rate equations under the saturation assumption. Long wavelength III-nitride InN and AIInN QD SOAs are simulated. Asymmetric behavior due to linewidth enhancement factor is assigned. P-doping increases efficiency. Lossless efficiency for InAlN QDs for longer radii is obtained. Carrier heating is shown to have a considerable effect and a detuning dependence is expected at most cases. InN QD SOAs shown to have higher efficiency.     

Inhibiting the onset of the three-photon destructive interference in ultraslow propagation-enhanced four-wave mixing with dual induced transparency

We propose a dual electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) based multiwave mixing scheme that retains the significantly enhanced conversion efficiency enabled by ultraslow propagation of pump waves, yet is also capable of inhibiting and delaying the onset of the detrimental three-photon destructive interference that limits the further growth of the four-wave mixing (FWM) field. We show that the new scheme exhibits a wave-matching condition that is fundamentally different from the conventional FWM without EIT, and the efficient generation of the mixing wave is not critically dependent upon the FWM detuning to achieve constructive interference as required in the conventional FWM. These are significant steps forward in enabling applications of ultraslow wave nonlinear optics.     

Performance investigation of suppression of four wave mixing using optical phase conjugation with different modulation format in DWDM soliton communication system

The performance of dense wavelength division multiplexed (DWDM) soliton transmission system for returnto-zero (RZ) and non-return-to-zero (NRZ) modulation formats have been investigated. The main aim of this paper is to estimate and mitigate the four wave mixing (FWM) power by using in-line optical phase conjugator (OPC). The effect of FWM has been estimated using real fiber link having nonlinear and attenuation losses. The FWM power is strongly suppressed by introducing destructive interference between the first and second halves of in-line OPC. It has been indicated that RZ with OPC yields the better performance with FWM power suppression (more than 20 dBm in certain cases) with reasonable bit error rate and Q-factor.