Two-Pump Four-Wave Mixing In Silicon Waveguides For Broadband Wavelength Conversion

Four-wave mixing (FWM) in silicon waveguides is considered to be a promising effect to realize the wavelength conversion function for wavelength-division-multiplexing optical communication systems. Compared to the degenerate FWM with a single pump, the nondegenerate FWM with two pumps shows more flexibility in phase-matching condition and has more opportunities to acquire broader conversion bandwidth. The bandwidth enhancement is theoretically analyzed for the two-pump FWM and an enhancement of 25% is experimentally demonstrated. Also, an ultra-broadband wavelength conversion is presented based on two-pump FWM by fixing one pump near the signal and scanning the other pumps.