NONCOLLINEAR 4-WAVE-MIXING IN A BROAD AREA SEMICONDUCTOR OPTICAL AMPLIFIER

A high-efficiency noncollinear four-wave mixing in a broad area travel ing-wave semiconductor optical amplifier is demonstrated. A key featur e of the demonstrated configuration is the ability to isolate generate d sidebands from the inputs. A wave-mixing efficiency of +8.2 dB with 22.6 dB of sideband isolation at 6 degrees separation between the two pump beams was obtained. The dependence of the efficiency on pump detu ning, separation angle, and probe wavelength was also investigated. Us e of a high quality traveling-wave amplifier enabled us to achieve rip ple-free broadband operation over 37 nm. The demonstrated configuratio n is a key to practical implementations of four-wave mixing based devi ces. (C) 1997 American Institute of Physics.