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IEEE Photonics Technology Letters

Pump Frequency Allocation and Dispersion Effect on Dual-Pump Phase Sensitive Amplifier Gain Spectrum

Ruwan U. Weerasuriya, Junda Chen, Rasmus Larsson, Peter A. Andrekson

Published Jul 30, 2025• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

Dual-pump fiber optical parametric amplifiers offer wide, flat gain spectra across arbitrary wavelengths, often outperforming the use of single-pump designs. However, gain flatness depends on the pump frequencies’ center of gravity relative to the nonlinear fiber’s zero-dispersion wavelength. This study experimentally investigated the gain, gain flatness, and noise figure of degenerate dual-pump fiber-optic phase-sensitive amplification at various separations between these points. We demonstrated 38 dB gain with 1.5 dB gain flatness variation over a 30 nm bandwidth as well as a noise figure below the conventional 3 dB quantum limit for a degenerate signal.

DOI
10.1109/lpt.2025.3594193

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Dual-pump fiber optical parametric amplifiers offer wide, flat gain spectra across arbitrary wavelengths, often outperforming the use of single-pump designs. However, gain flatness depends on the pump frequencies’ center of gravity relative to the nonlinear fiber’s zero-dispersion wavelength. This study experimentally investigated the gain, gain flatness, and noise figure of degenerate dual-pump fiber-optic phase-sensitive amplification at various separations between these points. We demonstrated 38 dB gain with 1.5 dB gain flatness variation over a 30 nm bandwidth as well as a noise figure below the conventional 3 dB quantum limit for a degenerate signal.
Flat and wide-bandwidth gain spectrum, along with phase-sensitive gain with no need to generate amplifier input idlers, can be achieved with a coupled dual-core fiber optical parametric amplifier. In this paper, we analyze the noise properties of such an amplifier. We achieve a 3 dB noise figure in the phase-insensitive case and a minimum of -6 dB noise figure in the phase-sensitive configuration. An alternative phase-sensitive configuration is also studied, that avoids the use of idlers at the input of the amplifier, leading to a 3 dB flat spectrum combined noise figure for the output signals. Pump transfer noise in phase-insensitive and phase-sensitive configurations is also studied along with the noise figure variation against the length of the amplifier.
Phase-sensitive amplification (PSA) is a unique optical amplification scheme, featuring a low-noise property (i.e., quantum limited noise figure of 0 dB) and a phase clamping effect available for phase noise suppression [1]. It is based on optical parametric interaction between signal and pump lights. It is known that the interaction efficiency and then the signal gain depend on the phase matching between those interacting lights. There are typically two frequency arrangements for PSA in an optical fiber: (i) one pump (frequency: fp) with signal (frequency: fs) and conjugated idler (frequency: fi) satisfying fs+ fi= 2fp[Fig. 1(a)], and (ii) two pumps (frequencies: fp1, fp2) with signal (frequency: fs) satisfying fp1+ fp2= 2fs[Fig. 1(b)]. The phase matching condition for the former is well known, which is equivalent to that of phase-insensitive amplification where the signal light is amplified without an idler incident, such that the phase matching is satisfied when the center wavelength of interacting lights is in the normal dispersion region, i.e., a wavelength longer than the zero-dispersion wavelength of a fiber, as indicated in Fig. 1(a) [2]. On the other hand, the phase-matching condition for the latter has not been explicitly investigated, to the author's knowledge. Although several experimental demonstrations of dual-pump fiber PSA have been reported, many of them employed the wavelength allocation of the center wavelength being in the normal dispersion region, without detailed considerations on the phase matching [3-6]. Thereupon, this paper studies the phase matching condition of dual-pump PSA in an optical fiber.
We experimentally demonstrate a single-pumped, non-degenerate phase-sensitive parametric amplifier with a precise control of phase and amplitude of the in-going waves and investigate in detail its gain, attenuation and saturation properties in comparison with operation in phase insensitive amplifier (PIA) mode. We experimentally observe the variation of the gain and attenuation as a function of the relative phase, pump power and the signal-idler power ratio. The phase sensitive gain spectrum is studied over a 24 nm symmetrical bandwidth and we achieve a maximum phase sensitive amplification (PSA) gain of 33 dB. A departure from the theoretical maximum attenuation as the gain increases is observed and explained.
Optical phase-sensitive amplifiers (PSAs) leverage nonlinear interactions to achieve noise figures below the conventional quantum limit. Dual-pump phase-insensitive amplification has been studied in wavelength conversion, phase conjugation and spectral inversion, but phase-sensitive amplification remains challenging due to stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) in optical fibers. While pump-phase modulation helps mitigate SBS, it broadens the idler spectrum, complicating practical implementation. We demonstrate a counter-phase pump modulation approach to suppress idler spectral broadening using optical coherent combining and delayed self-heterodyne techniques to achieve excellent noise figure (NF) performance in dual-pump PSAs. Our methods achieve over 30 dB suppression of residual phase modulation tones and significantly improve the idler spectrum. We obtained a 20 dB gain with an NF of 1.45 dB and a minimal NF penalty of 0.2 dB due to pump-phase modulation. This achievement enables PSAs to support optical communication, wavelength conversion, and deep-space communication applications.
This paper theoretically investigates the dependence of the performance of dual-pump degenerate phase-sensitive amplification (PSA) on wavelength allocation. A fiber-based PSA under unsaturated-gain conditions is considered. Phase mismatch is formalized in terms of incident light frequencies, taking the nonlinear phase shift into account, based on which PSA performances, such as signal gain, noise figure, and phase-clamping effect, are evaluated as a function of the signal wavelength. The results quantitatively indicate that these PSA properties are degraded as the signal wavelength is detuned from the phase-matched condition.