Fiber four-wave mixing demultiplexing with inherent parametric amplification

Journal article, 1997

We present an all-optical time-division demultiplexer with 22 dB conversion efficiency, using four-wave mixing (FWM) at 1550 nm in a single-mode dispersion-shifted fiber. Error-free demultiplexing of 20 Gb/s data to 10 Gb/s is obtained, with 1.4 dB power penalty at BER = 10-9. We also derive theoretical expressions for the conversion efficiency, the maximum bit rate that is possible to demux and the shape of the switching window. In particular we emphasize the importance of phase-matching in order to achieve a flat switching window. Furthermore the pump must remain undepleted to avoid a detrimental reduction of the extinction ratio due to instantaneous parametric gain saturation.