Performance Evaluation of Nondegenerate Wavelength Conversion in a Silicon Nanowire Waveguide

The performance of wavelength conversion based on nondegenerate four-wave mixing (FWM) with two pumps is theoretically evaluated in a silicon nanowire waveguide. A theoretical model is developed to take into the limitations of nonlinear loss parameters on conversion bandwidth, efficiency, and uniformity. Analysis shows that the conversion bandwidth of two-pump nondegenerate FWM is > 30% broader than the conversion bandwidth of the degenerate FWM without compromising the conversion efficiency under the same pump power level. Also the results indicate that the improvement originates from efficient phase matching over broader bandwidth range due to two-wavelength pumps.