Broadband tunable optical amplification based on modulation instability characteristic of high-birefringence photonic crystal fibers

Abstract

A novel high-birefringence photonic crystal fiber (HB-PCF) with two zero-dispersion wavelengths (ZDWs) is designed, and an extraordinarily high modal birefringence of 1.56×10−2 is obtained at pump wavelength λp = 1850 nm. With the designed HB-PCF, the effect of the pump parameters on the modulation instability (MI) in the anomalous dispersion region close to the second ZDWs of the HB-PCF is comprehensively studied in this work. A broadband and tunable optical amplification is achieved by controlling the pump power and the pump wavelength based on the combined operation of Raman effect and cross phase modulation. By optimizing the pump parameters, the amplification bandwidth along the fiber slow axis reaches 152 nm for the pump power Pp = 280 W and the pump wavelength λp=1675 nm, while the gain bandwidth along the fiber fast axis is 165 nm for the pump power Pp = 600 W and the pump wavelength λp = 1818 nm.