Amplification of 12 x 10 Gb/s WDM signals with negligible FWM crosstalk in a double-pumped fiber optical parametric amplifier

We report on the amplification of 12 x 10 Gb/s wavelength-division-multiplexed signals by a double-pumped fiber optic parametric amplifier (2P-FOPA). A gain of 10 dB is obtained using a 4.3 km-long conventional dispersion shifted fiber (DSF) as nonlinear medium. Our spectra show negligible generation of spurious FWM products, and we attribute this to the small variations of the zero-dispersion wavelength of the DSF. The 2P-FOPA performance is assessed through Q-factor measurements, and we show that for output powers per channel ranging from -15 to 3 dBm the power penalty is less than 0.5 dB. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.