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Journal of the Optical Society of America B

Impact of phase modulation and parametric gain on signal polarization in an anomalously dispersive optical fiber

Joao F. L. de Freitas, Christiano J. S. de Matos, M. B. Costa e Silva, Anderson S. L. Gomes

Published Jun 15, 2007• 9 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We theoretically and experimentally study changes with pump power in the polarization of an optical signal as it simultaneously experiences Kerr-effect-induced birefringence and four-wave-mixing-based parametric amplification from a copropagating pump in an optical fiber. It is shown that the changes caused by the two nonlinear optical effects are orthogonal to each other in the Stokes space. Results also show that the pump polarization state works as an attractor for signal polarization. The implications of this feature to fiber parametric amplifiers and entangled-photon sources are discussed, and a fiber polarization switch is demonstrated.

DOI
10.1364/josab.24.001469

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We theoretically and experimentally study changes with pump power in the polarization of an optical signal as it simultaneously experiences Kerr-effect-induced birefringence and four-wave-mixing-based parametric amplification from a copropagating pump in an optical fiber. It is shown that the changes caused by the two nonlinear optical effects are orthogonal to each other in the Stokes space. Results also show that the pump polarization state works as an attractor for signal polarization. The implications of this feature to fiber parametric amplifiers and entangled-photon sources are discussed, and a fiber polarization switch is demonstrated.
We investigate the possibility of obtaining phase-sensitive amplification (PSA) in a fiber-optic parametric amplifier (OPA), with gain independent of the state of polarization of the input signal, i.e., polarization-independent amplification. We consider both a single OPA with two orthogonal pumps and a polarization-diversity scheme. In either case, PSA with maximum gain is possible, provided that the signal and idler are in suitably matched polarization states; this condition is naturally satisfied by the output fields of an upstream polarization-insensitive amplifier of the same type. Two polarization-multiplexed signals can then be simultaneously amplified in the PSA. The low noise figure can also be obtained with these types of PSA. However, in general, this favorable situation is not maintained if the signal and idler states of polarization drift together due to birefringence fluctuations in a transmission fiber preceding the PSA.
We proposed a theoretical model to investigate the polarization pulling effect in bi-directionally pumped degenerate Raman assisted fiber optical parameter amplifiers (RA-FOPAs) using randomly birefringent fibers. The contributions of chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion (PMD), Raman gain, and nonlinear effects to the phase matching in RA-FOPAs are investigated. We characterize four different states of polarization pulling in RA-FOPAs. We found that broadband polarization attraction can be obtained in the optimum phase-matching state of the bi-directionally pumped RA-FOPAs when the parametric pump power is chosen to avoid deep saturation of the Raman gain.
Optical amplification in optical fibers by means of degenerate four-wave mixing (DFWM) is studied by classical equations. A balanced interferometer is used to mix and separate the signal and the pump. Exact solutions are obtained even with pump depletion. If the cross-phase modulation is small, the signal power gain varies as the square of the pump self-phase shift. This gain can be sizable for moderate fiber lengths and laser powers, before the onset of stimulated Raman scattering. We have experimentally verified these calculations with a Sagnac interferometer, comprising a 300 m long polarization-preserving fiber, emitting pulses with 100-200 W peak power and 100-200 nsec duration. We have measured a signal power gain of 22 (13.3 dB); this value correlated well with a pump self-phase shift of 3π/2 measured in a separate two-wavelength experiment. This system can be used for squeezing fluctuations of the signal quadrature which is not amplified. We have performed a classical derivation of squeezing, based upon a geometrical study of the transformation of the signal phasor. The results are in agreement with those of more elaborate quantum-mechanical derivations.
We study the interplay between parametric and Raman gain in photonic crystal fibers by taking into account the vector nature of the electric field, the fiber frequency dependent birefringence, the Kerr nonlinear coefficient, the Raman gain profile and chromatic dispersion. In particular, we show that an accurate representation of the frequency dependence of the nonlinear and dispersive properties of a photonic crystal fiber is essential for correctly describing the overall gain profile for a probe signal at large frequency detuning from a continuous wave or pulsed pump. For example, we found that fourth and higher order dispersion have a striking influence on the spectrum of modulation polarization instability gain in both the high and low birefringence regime, in that the vector parametric gain is suppressed above a critical level of linear birefringence. We validated the theory by experimental observations of vector parametric amplification in high birefringence holey fiber with triple defects.
Four-wave parametric amplification can be extended to the TW/cm2^22 regime using femtosecond pump pulses to amplify nearly octave spanning pulses with gain >20> 20>20~mm−1^{-1}−1, which we call Kerr instability amplification. Cross-polarized wave generation exploits Kerr anisotropy to induce a transient intensity-dependent polarization evolution. In this work, we combine Kerr instability amplification with cross-polarized wave generation to simultaneously amplify and rotate the output polarization of a signal beam, and we explore laser and crystal parameters to control the resulting polarization. In 1~mm MgO(100), we amplify linearly polarized light by 2000×2000\times2000× orthogonal to the pump and seed polarization. The parametric amplification and polarization rotation offers excellent pulse contrast enhancement for future high-power laser systems. Furthermore, the polarization provides an additional observable to study the nonlinear dynamics occuring in this extreme ultrafast light-matter interaction.
Optical parametric amplifiers rely on second-order susceptibility (three-wave mixing) or third-order susceptibility (four-wave mixing) in a nonlinear process where the energy of incoming photons is not changed (elastic scattering). In the latter case, two pump photons are converted to a signal and to an idler photon. Under certain conditions, related to the phase evolution of the waves involved, this conversion can be very efficient, resulting in large amplification of an input signal. As the nonlinear process can be very fast, all-optical applications aside from pure amplification are also possible. If the amplifier is implemented in an optical input-phase-sensitive manner, it is possible to amplify a signal wave without excess noise, i.e., with a noise figure of 0 dB. In this paper, we will provide the fundamental concepts and theory of such amplifiers, with a focus on their implementation in highly nonlinear optical fibers relying on four-wave mixing. We will discuss the distinctions between phase-insensitive and phase-sensitive operation and include several experimental results to illustrate their capability. Different applications of parametric amplifiers are also discussed, including their use in optical communication links.