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Optics Express

Optimization of a degenerate dual-pump phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier for all-optical regenerative functionality

Weilin Xie, Ihsan Fsaifes, Fabien Bretenaker

Published May 19, 2017• 8 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We present a thorough investigation aimed at the optimization of a phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier capable of simultaneous phase and amplitude regeneration. The regeneration potential, quantified in terms of the phase-sensitive extinction ratio, has been carefully assessed by a scalar model involving high-order waves associated with high-order four-wave mixing processes, going beyond the usual three-wave approach. Additionally, this model permits to unveil the physics involved in the high-order waves assisted regeneration. This permits a multi-dimensional and comprehensive optimization that fully exploits the underlying regenerative capability and expedites the design of a transparent regenerator, showing the potential to act as basic building block in future all-optical processing. We also compare different strategies when such regenerators are configured in concatenation. The approach can be readily applied to virtually any similar applications for different all-optical processing functionalities.

DOI
10.1364/oe.25.012552

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We present a thorough investigation aimed at the optimization of a phase-sensitive optical parametric amplifier capable of simultaneous phase and amplitude regeneration. The regeneration potential, quantified in terms of the phase-sensitive extinction ratio, has been carefully assessed by a scalar model involving high-order waves associated with high-order four-wave mixing processes, going beyond the usual three-wave approach. Additionally, this model permits to unveil the physics involved in the high-order waves assisted regeneration. This permits a multi-dimensional and comprehensive optimization that fully exploits the underlying regenerative capability and expedites the design of a transparent regenerator, showing the potential to act as basic building block in future all-optical processing. We also compare different strategies when such regenerators are configured in concatenation. The approach can be readily applied to virtually any similar applications for different all-optical processing functionalities.
We demonstrate numerically phase regeneration of a star-8QAM signal with two amplitude and four phase states in a phase-sensitive amplifier. In a dual-stage setup, two phase-conjugated idlers are generated in a first stage consisting of two fiber-optic parametric phase-insensitive amplifiers operated in highly nonlinear gain regime. These are used as pumps in the second, phase-sensitive amplification stage which enables efficient phase regeneration via a degenerate four-wave-mixing process. The latter can be operated in two different operation modes: without format conversion or with phase-shifted amplitude levels. In both regimes, we observe high phase-regeneration efficiency for all amplitude levels: the initial phase noise with 0.2 rad standard deviation is reduced by a factor of 5.
Phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSAs) offer numerous advantages over phase-insensitive amplifiers in optical communications. Squeezing of optical phase through PSA can remove accumulated phase jitter, which is a critical functionality for an all- optical, phase-shift keyed network. In recent experiments, reviewed in this report, different implementations of PSA were used for phase regeneration of both return-to-zero differential phase-shift keying and nonreturn-to-zero differential phase-shift keying data. The first demonstration explored the properties and performance of PSA that occurs in nonlinear interferometers. Experiments confirmed that a PSA operating in the depleted pump regime provides simultaneous reduction of amplitude and phase noise (PN). Phase regeneration performance limit was reached as a consequence of pump-wave imperfections, which can be significantly reduced through proper design. PSA that occurs directly in fiber in a traveling-wave configuration through partially degenerate four-wave mixing was also studied. The latter implementation offers stronger phase-matched gain and suppression of amplitude-to-phase noise conversion. Technical issues that remain to be addressed are identified for each implementation. Results characterized using coherent detection offer direct measurements of the phase-regenerative behavior.
Phase sensitive amplification (PSA) is a remarkably powerful tool if implemented correctly - it allows amplification with a noise figure lower than quantum mechanics normally dictates, and also allows the development of systems that coherently process the phase of their optical inputs. PSA at infrared wavelengths can be achieved using second or third order optical nonlinearities - indeed the first demonstrations of PSA utilised degenerate three photon mixing in bulk crystals, allowing the observation of effects such as quantum quadrature squeezing. This PhD research project was aimed at translating the fascinating science of PSAs into applications, based on Kerr nonlinearity in optical fibres, capable of being deployed in modern core optical networks runnning at 40 Gbit/s and higher. This objective was an integral part of the European Union FP7 project PHASORS. Studies, both theoretical and experimental, were carried out on wideband non-degenerate PSAs. The inline cascaded fiber optic parametric amplifier (FOPA), in which a first phase insensitive FOPA is used to generate phase locked signal-idler pairs, followed by a second FOPA in which PSA takes place, was used to experimentally demonstrate PSA gain characteristics in linear and saturated modes of operation, with PSA obtained over 20 nm in the telecom C-band. Focus was then re-directed towards applying a dual pump PSA to DPSK regeneration. The amplitude and phase limiting characteristics of these devices were experimentally studied, in particular revealing that amplitude saturation arises due to an interplay between input phase and nonlinear phase matching along the nonlinear fibre. This feature was used to identify a regime of operation for DPSK regeneration combining simultaneous phase and amplitude regeneration. A practical DPSK regenerator based on a degenerate dual pump phase sensitive FOPA was built. The device advanced the state of the art by incorporating a pump synthesis stage that allowed black-box operation. Detailed measurements using noise sources with varying frequency distributions in both amplitude and in phase, are presented, and the ability of the system to improve the phase and amplitude characteristics of signals at its input was verified. Also presented are results showing the regenerator installed in the middle of an 800 km dark fiber link. Finally, a novel scheme was proposed and demonstrated that utilised parametric mixing to perform arbitrary phase quantization. This relied on the coherent addition of an M-level PSK signal with a conjugated (M-1)th phase harmonic, scaled by a coefficient m, to achieve M-level phase quantization. The concept was successfully demonstrated with QPSK data signals at 56 Gbaud, as well as used to quantize lower bandwidth test signals from 2 to 6 phase levels.
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.