Impact of pump OSNR on noise figure for fiber-optical parametric amplifiers

Electrical measurements of the noise figure of a fiber-optical parametric amplifier are presented and compared with optical measurements. The transfer of pump noise by four-wave mixing was clearly demonstrated. A numerical model was developed to simulate the transfer of pump noise and validated by these measurements. Using this model, we determine, for practical systems, a minimum required pump optical signal-to-noise ratio of 65 dB.