POLARIZATION-INSENSITIVE OPTICAL FOUR-PHOTON MIXER

摘要

POLARIZATION-INSENSITIVE OPTICAL FOUR-PHOTON MIXER The present invention provides an apparatus and method for performing polarization-insensitive four-photon mixing of optical signals. The polarization-insensitive optical mixer includes a polarization splitter for splitting an optical signal into parallel and perpendicular polarization components, different mixing paths for mixing a pump signal of like polarization with each of the parallel and perpendicular components in a nonlinear mixing device, and a polarization combiner for combining the resulting mixing products. Certain of the mixing products represent phase conjugates of the input optical signal, and are therefore useful in compensating for chromatic distortion in optical fiber.