Measurement of fiber nonlinear Kerr coefficient by four-wave mixing

Abstract

We demonstrate a Kerr coefficient measurement of dispersion-shifted fibers based on the nonlinear mixing process between two continuous pump waves and on the power measurements of the created frequencies. A numerical model simulates the experimental conditions and is exploited to determine the Kerr coefficient. Unavoidable polarization effects are precisely taken into account both experimentally and numerically by launching the pump waves on the principal polarization states. This allows us to obtain reproducible measured values and a better than 5% resolution.