Nondegenerate four-wave mixing in a dual mode injection locked quantum dot laser

Nondegenerate four-wave mixing (NDFWM) in semiconductor gain media is a promising source for wavelength conversion in the wavelength division multiplexed (WDM) systems and for fiber dispersion compensation in long distance fiber links. In contrast to bulk and quantum well (QW) semiconductors, the quantum dot (QD) gain medium is favorable for enhancing the performance of the FWM because of the wide gain spectrum, large nonlinear effect as well as ultrafast carrier dynamics. Especially, the destructive interference can be eliminated due to the reduced linewidth enhancement factor (LEF) for obtaining high efficiency in the wavelength up-conversion. This work reports the NDFWM generation in a dual-mode injection-locked QD Fabry-Perot (FP) laser. The device has a wide gain spectrum with a full width at half maximum of 81 nm, and a peak net modal gain of 14.4 cm^-1. The laser exhibits two lasing peaks induced by Rabi oscillation, which provides the possibility for efficient FWM generation. Employing the dual-mode injection-locking scheme, an efficient NDFWM is achieved up to a detuning range of 1.7 THz with a weak injection ratio of 0.44. The highest measured values for both the normalized conversion efficiency (NCE) and the side-mode suppression ratio (SMSR) with respect to the converted signal respectively are -17 dB and 20.3 dB at the detuning 110 GHz.