Abstract

Optical amplification, pulse compression, and frequency conversion with the aid of nonlinear optical effects in silica fibers are currently of great interest for high-bit-rate optical transmission systems with a long repeater spacing.^1–4 In stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), the bandwidth of the light amplification is as wide as 100 cm⁻¹ so that it enables us to amplify an ultrashort pulse. It is also advantageous that SRS has potential as an active transmission line since the interaction length of SRS is long. Optical amplification characteristics by backward stimulated Raman scattering (BSRS) in polarization-maintaining fibers are described to achieve efficient Raman interaction. The backward pump configuration is advantageous because the amplified signal does not contain the strong pump beam.

© 1984 Optical Society of America