Four-Wave Mixing in Semiconductor Traveling-Wave Amplifiers for Wavelength Conversion in All-Optical Networks

Intraband modulation in semiconductor gain media has recently been shown to provide a wideband nonlinearity which is five orders of magnitude larger than the Kerr non-linearity in silica fiber. We discuss recent work on the application of this nonlinearity to the wavelength conversion function in all optical networks; specifically, carrier wavelength spectral translation by four-wave mixing. In addition to reviewing the current performance of these devices including conversion efficiency, signal-to-noise and a simple system demonstration, we will describe the underlying physics of the ultra-fast four-wave mixing mechanism and its application to TeraHertz spectroscopy of intraband scattering. An overview of wavelength conversion in the context of all-optical networks is provided and competing techniques to four-wave mixing wavelength conversion are also discussed.