Four-wave mixing in a distributed-feedback laser

Abstract

We present a detailed study of four-wave mixing in a long-wavelength distributed-feedback (DFB) laser for both nearly degenerate and nondegenerate pump-probe detunings. We characterize scaling laws of the power dependence of multiple conjugate waves on the pump and probe power levels for the nearly degenerate case. We also measure the output ratio of the probe and conjugate waves up to a detuning of 500 GHz and report the cavity enhancement of the DFB laser on this output ratio.

Ultra-Wide Range Wavelength Conversion Using FWM in a Raman DFB Fiber Laser

“…A more compact method to obtain FWM would be to use a DFB fiber laser as a mixing device and use the signal of the DFB laser as the pump for the FWM process. Such mixing process has previously been reported in the context of semiconductor DFB lasers [3,4]. However, so far, no FWM-related wavelength conversion has been observed in DFB fiber lasers.…”

Experimental investigation of wavelength conversion based on four-wave mixing in a three-electrode distributed feedback laser

“…The theory predicts a linear dependence for the conjugate wave C1. 6 The deviation between the theory and the experiment can be attributed to the strong probe power injected in the device, which depletes the carriers, affecting thus the pump power ͓Fig. 2͑a͔͒.…”

“…1,2 The main active semiconductor media used as nonlinear elements are: ͑a͒ the semiconductor optical amplifiers ͑SOA͒ 3 and ͑b͒ various types of semiconductor laser diodes. [4][5][6] Fourwave mixing ͑FWM͒ in SOA offers high conversion efficiency ͑up to 20 dB͒ and also continuous tuneability. 3 On the other hand, the output signal-to-background noise-ratio ͑SBR͒ is limited by the strong amplified spontaneous emission noise.…”

“…High efficiency and SBR is expected only for the cases where the converted signal wavelength is located around the modes of the laser diode. 6 As a result the use of wavelength converters based on FWM in laser diodes suffers from stepwise tunability. However, in many network applications the converter needs to be step tunable as the different channels are fixed at predetermined wavelengths.…”

Theory and experiment of high-speed cross-gain modulation in semiconductor lasers

“…Wavelength conversion techniques include cross-gain modulation (XGM) or cross-phase modulation (XPM) in semi conductor optical amplifiers (SOA) [1]- [6], four-wave mixing (FWM) in passive waveguides [7], SOAs [8], or semiconductor lasers [9], gain-suppression mechanism in the semiconductor lasers such as DBR lasers [10], [11] and T-Gate lasers [13], laser-based wavelength conversion [14], [15], and difference frequency generation (DFG) [16].…”