Nontransparency and optical phase erasure characteristic of four-wave mixing

Abstract

Four-wave mixing (FWM) is a well-known nonlinear optical phenomenon and has attracted great interest in nonlinear all-optical signal processing owing to its ultrafast and transparent properties. Here we report the experimental observation via spectra on the nontransparency and optical phase erasure characteristic of FWM. The distinctive feature of “optical phase erasure” is a consequence of square relationship between the converted idler and input signal. It is interesting to find that the optical phase information carried by the input signal is erased in the converted idler by exploiting FWM. Such new attribute of FWM enables optical phase information removal and all-optical format conversion from carrier-suppressed return-to-zero (CSRZ) to return-to-zero (RZ). Moreover, similar phenomena are observed in the higher-order FWM. In addition, the nontransparency phenomenon and optical phase erasure characteristic are also demonstrated by theoretical analyses with optical spectra and phase diagrams.