Widely tunable spectrum translation and wavelength exchange by four-wave mixing in optical fibers

By a suitable choice of the wavelengths of two pumps and one signal about the zero-dispersion wavelength of a fiber, it is possible to generate mainly one four-wave-mixing product (idler) whose spectrum is a translated version of that of the signal; no spectral inversion or phase conjugation is involved. Unit conversion efficiency can in principle be obtained. Complete exchange of power between two wavelengths can be implemented. One can adjust the wavelengths of the signal and the idler at will over tens of nanometers, while maintaining high conversion efficiency, by suitably tuning the pumps. For fixed pump wavelengths, the signal bandwidth scales linearly with pump power and can reach several nanometers for pump powers of the order of several watts in silica fibers or less in highly nonlinear fibers.