Gain characteristics of coherent optical amplifiers using a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with Kerr media

Author

Imajuku, Wataru ; Takada, Atsushi

Author_Institution

NTT Network Innovation Labs., Kanagawa, Japan

Volume

35

Issue

11

fYear

1999

fDate

11/1/1999 12:00:00 AM

Firstpage

1657

Lastpage

1665

Abstract

This paper investigates the gain characteristics of coherent optical amplifiers that amplify only one of two quadrature phase components in an input signal light according to the phase of pump light. It is constructed around a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with Kerr media. To heuristically obtain the design parameters of the coherent optical amplifier, small-signal analysis is adapted to the Mach-Zehnder interferometer with Kerr media. The theoretical results are then compared to experimental results and shown to agree well, which confirms the validity of this design approach. By utilizing low-loss and high-nonlinearity silica fiber as the Kerr medium and optimizing its length, a coherent optical amplifier is constructed that yields high-gain (up to 26 dB) operation

Keywords

Mach-Zehnder interferometers; light coherence; optical Kerr effect; optical fibre losses; optical losses; optical pumping; semiconductor optical amplifiers; 26 dB; Kerr media; Mach-Zehnder interferometer; coherent optical amplifier; coherent optical amplifiers; design parameters; gain characteristics; high-gain; high-nonlinearity silica fiber; input signal light; low-loss silica fiber; quadrature phase components; Operational amplifiers; Optical amplifiers; Optical design; Optical devices; Optical fiber amplifiers; Optical interferometry; Optical pumping; Semiconductor optical amplifiers; Silicon compounds; Stimulated emission;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Quantum Electronics, IEEE Journal of

Publisher

ieee

ISSN

0018-9197

Type

jour

DOI

10.1109/3.798089

Filename

798089