Chromatic dispersion monitoring based on four wave mixing in silicon waveguide

We implement a chromatic dispersion monitoring scheme that is based on four wave mixing (FWM) in a 2.1 cm long silicon waveguide. The average idler power produced by FWM in the waveguide depends on the peak power which is dependent on the pump pulse width after chromatic dispersion. Thus the average idler power can be measured to monitor accumulated residual dispersion in the pump. The average idler power change by ~ 53 % is observed for 40 Gb/s return-to-zero (RZ) signal when the dispersion is varied from zero to 27.2 ps/nm.