All-optical ultrafast wavelength and mode converter based on inter-modal four-wave mixing in few-mode fibers

An ultrafast all-optical simultaneous wavelength and mode conversion scheme is purposed based on intermodal four-wave mixing (IM-FWM), with the capability of switching state of polarization (SOP) and mode degeneracy orientation (MDO) in few-mode fibers (FMF). The relation among the conversion efficiency, pump power and phase matching conditions is investigated in theory analysis and simulation. Using this scheme, cross-polarization modulation (XPolM) and cross-mode modulation (XMM) can be achieved, by in the best case up to 50% conversion efficiency. Furthermore, numerical results further indicate that the proposed configuration has the potential application for generating doughnut modes by the mixing of three characteristic spatial frequencies.