Non-degenerate four-wave mixing effects are investigated in an injection-locked InAs/InP nanostructure Fabry-Perot laser. Locking a longitudinal mode at various wavelengths within the gain spectrum and using the locked mode as the pump for the wave mixing shows different levels of asymmetry between up- and down-conversion. Experiments reveal that the normalized conversion efficiency is less asymmetric when the pump is locked at wavelengths below that of the gain peak. The values of nonlinear conversion efficiencies are maintained above -60 dB for pump-probe frequency detunings up to 3.5 THz. The role of the linewidth enhancement factor on the asymmetry is discussed and the value of the nonlinear susceptibility is compared to similar InAs/InP nanostructure semiconductor optical amplifiers. From an end-user viewpoint, data transmission experiments have also confirmed the possibility to propagate up-converted signals over 100 km at a 5 Gb/s bit rate under an OOK modulation format.

Date Published: 16 March 2015
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9357, Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XXIII, 93570Y (16 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2080105

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9357:
Physics and Simulation of Optoelectronic Devices XXIII
Bernd Witzigmann; Marek Osiński; Fritz Henneberger; Yasuhiko Arakawa, Editor(s)