Differential Kerr-induced XPM in dispersion shifted fiber for wavelength conversion

Summary form only given. Kerr induced Cross Phase Modulation (XPM) in optical fiber is one of the effects able to provide wavelength conversion at very high bit-rate. The extensive use of this effect has been prevented by the low value of the nonlinear refractive index of standard optical fiber. Large amounts of fiber are necessary to obtain suitable phase modulation, and thus classical Kerr-based interferometric converters are extremely sensitive to acoustical and thermal noise. The aim of this work is to present a wavelength conversion experiment which exploits Kerr-induced birefringence in a standard Dispersion Shifted fiber in a Kerr shutter configuration. The IM drive beam at /spl lambda//sub drive/ amplified and linearly polarized, is fed into the nonlinear path-a Dispersion Shifted fiber coil-together with the CW probe at /spl lambda//sub probe/. This Kerr shutter wavelength converter takes advantage of the low Group Velocity Dispersion of the used nonlinear fiber (DS) in the third low loss window.