Continuous-wave, short-wavelength infrared mixer using dispersion-stabilized highly-nonlinear fiber

A new type of highly nonlinear fiber (HNLF) was designed and fabricated. The new HNLF was engineered to reduce dispersion shift due to transverse fluctuations while maintaining the modal confinement superior to that of the conventional fibers. The new design strategy was validated by the measurements of the global and local dispersive characteristics under considerable core and index profile deformation induced by tensile stress, which indicated that the dispersive and phase matching characteristics of the fiber did not change even under the highest tensile stress. The characteristics effectively decoupled tension-based Brillouin suppression from phase-matching impairments in parametric mixers for the first time. The new HNLF was used to demonstrate the first coherence-preserving mixer operating in the short-wavelength infrared (SWIR) band. The SWIR mixer was driven by continuous-wave near-infrared (NIR) pump and did not require pump phase dithering to suppress Brillouin scattering.