Optical parametric amplifiers and their applications

Fiber based optical parametric amplifiers (OPA) have reached a renewed interest due to the availability of new highly nonlinear optical fibers (HNLF) and the possibility of gain outside the erbium-doped fiber amplifier (EDFA) band. Results may be divided into two subclasses; the coherent OPA and the incoherent OPA. The coherent amplifier boost components of the input signal with the same phase as the average signal while attenuating components with the orthogonal phase. This work will focus on recent experiments on incoherent OPAs aimed at signal reamplification as well as optical time division multiplexed (OTDM) applications such as demultiplexing, short pulse generation, transparent wavelength conversion and optical sampling.