Optical harmonic mixers

Mixing of optical signals in a waveguide via the second-order nonlinear effect in semiconductors was studied theoretically and experimentally. The InP-based material system was the main focus of the investigations. Both the up-conversion leading to second-harmonic generation and the down-conversion leading to optical rectification were analyzed and experimentally verified. Experiments in nonlinear optical waveguide structures at 1.55 μm wavelength have shown the existence of both the quadratic second-harmonic signals as well as the linearly dependent optical rectification signals. Quantitative estimates confirmed a good agreement between the theory and the experiment. Some interesting applications for high-speed optical data processing required in transparent optical telecommunication systems have been identified. Most attractive functions proposed to be implemented with these types of devices are, for example, flexible-to-bit-rate all-optical clock extraction in a transparent high-performance optical telecommunication network or accurate and fast measurement of optical frequency for optical synchronization needs in wavelength-division-multiplexing systems