Simultaneous achievement of suppression of modulational instability and reduction of stimulated Raman scattering in optical fibers by orthogonal polarization pumping

We present experiments that show simultaneous achievement of suppression of modulational instability and substantial reduction of stimulated Raman sca ttering in birefringent optical fibers under dual-frequency, orthogonal pol arization pumping. The suppression mechanism is based on careful control of the group-velocity match between the pumps and on an appropriate choice of the input power distribution among the components of the pump field. The u se of orthogonally polarized pump beams permits suppression of the parametr ic and Raman Stokes beams in any one of the fiber axes, with a frequency sp acing between the pumps (2.4 THz) that is reduced by more than 1 order of m agnitude compared with the pump-frequency spacing required for a linearly p olarized pump field (26 THz). (C) 2000 Optical Society of America.