Polarization-insensitive widely tunable wavelength converter based on four-wave mixing in a dispersion-flattened nonlinear photonic Crystal fiber

Polarization-insensitive widely tunable wavelength conversion has been demonstrated using four-wave mixing in a 64-m-long dispersion-flattened nonlinear photonic crystal fiber. A 3-dB conversion range over 40 nm (1535-1575 nm) is obtained with a flat conversion efficiency of -16 dB and a polarization sensitivity of less than 0.3 dB. The measured power penalty is less than 1 dB for a 10-Gb/s converted nonreturn-to-zero signal at 10/sup -9/ bit-error rate.