Four-wave mixing wavelength conversion efficiency in semiconductor traveling-wave amplifiers measured to 65 nm of wavelength shift

Abstract

The efficiency of broadband optical wavelength conversion by four-wave mixing in semiconductor traveling-wave amplifiers is measured for wavelength shifts up to 65 nm using a tandem amplifier geometry. A quantity we call the relative conversion efficiency function, which determines the strength of the four-wave mixing nonlinearity, was extracted from the data. Using this quantity, gain requirements for lossless four-wave mixing wavelength conversion are calculated and discussed. Signal to background noise ratio is also measured and discussed in this study.< <ETX xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">&gt;</ETX>