title: Experimental comparison of a Kerr nonlinearity figure of merit including the stimulated Brillouin scattering threshold for state-of-the-art nonlinear optical fibers.
abstract: We introduce a new figure of merit (FOM) including the input pump power limit associated with stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) for evaluation of the Kerr nonlinearity efficiency of optical fibers. The new FOM is expressed as gammaL(eff)P(SBS) (gamma is a nonlinearity parameter, L(eff) is effective length, and P(SBS) is the SBS threshold), while the conventional FOM is given by gammaL(eff). Using the new FOM, we perform an efficiency comparison among four types of state-of-the-art nonlinear optical fiber: a Bi2O3-based nonlinear fiber, a silica-based holey fiber, a highly nonlinear dispersion-shifted fiber, and a conventional dispersion-shifted fiber. The Bi2O3-based nonlinear fiber is found to have the best Kerr nonlinearity efficiency owing to the superior nonlinear property of the Bi2O3 glass compared with that of the silica.
authors.affiliation: Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Tokyo, 4-6-1 Komaba, Meguro-Ku, Tokyo 153-8904, Japan. j.h.lee@ieee.org
authors.forename: Ju Han
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Lee
authors.forename: Takuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Tanemura
authors.forename: Kazuro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kikuchi
authors.forename: Tatsuo
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nagashima
authors.forename: Tomoharu
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Hasegawa
authors.forename: Seiki
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Ohara
authors.forename: Naoki
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sugimoto