Nonlinear Fiber Optics, 6th Edition

Chapter 10

Four-wave mixing

Abstract

In the stimulated scattering processes covered in Chapters 8 and 9, optical fibers play an active role in the sense that the process depends on molecular vibrations or density variations of silica. In a separate class of nonlinear phenomena, optical fibers play a passive role except for mediating interaction among several optical waves. Such nonlinear processes are referred to as parametric processes, because they involve modulation of a medium parameter, such as the refractive index, and require phase-matching before they can build up along the fiber. Among these, four-wave mixing (FWM) plays the dominant role. Although FWM can be detrimental for WDM systems that must be designed to reduce its impact, it is ...