All optical noise limiters based on saturated FOPAs: Numerical and experimental study on signal degradation

Optical limiters based on saturated parametric optical amplifiers are studied through numerical simulations and experiments. Numerical results show that in such devices the noise suppression benefit exists within a signal input power range. This power range depends on fiber length and gets narrower if a higher Q factor is required. The numerical results were confirmed by our experimental results showing that an operational optical limiter must be carefully designed in order to successfully work in all-optical networks.