Abstract

The intensity noise characteristics of cross-phase modulation instability (MI) light produced in a high-birefringent pure silica core optical fiber are investigated. The four-wave mixing spectra are observed on the light exiting the fiber, which is pumped with intense pulses at λ = 514.5 nm from a mode locked, cavity pumped argon ion laser^[1]. The sidebands are separated from the pump frequency by about 2.5 THz. The intensity noise on the sidebands, and the noise on the intensity difference, are investigated for the case where the light is produced from a single pass through the fiber, and for the light from a MI laser. The intention of the experiment is to observe the recently predicted^[2] intensity difference squeezing. In principle the MI process provides a new source of correlated photon pairs.

© 1992 IQEC