Two-wave mixing in erbium-doped-fibers with spectral-hole burning at 77K

Abstract

Experimental results on effective two-wave mixing (TWM) via dynamic population gratings in saturable erbium doped fibers (EDFs) at liquid nitrogen temperature (77 K) are reported. It is shown that formation of the spectral holes (SHs) by the recording coherent waves in the wavelength region 1500–1540 nm results in a complex dynamics of the transient TWM response. In addition to conventional slow, even-type response due to amplitude grating formation via spectrally uniform EDF absorption saturation we also observed a dominating contribution due to SH formation. In particular, at the recording wavelength 1527 nm the relaxation time of the SH contribution to the TWM process was significantly shorter (< 4.7 ms) and with the effective recording power ∼4 times lower than that for conventional EDF population grating.