Relative intensity noise induced by four-wave mixing in the case of two-wave transmission in an optical fiber

Four-wave mixing (FWM) is a significant nonlinear effect in wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) fiber-optic systems. For two-wave transmission, it is easily found that the FWM noise power decreases with frequency spacing and increases with signal power. However, the variation of relative intensity noise (RIN) with frequency spacing and signal power is only 2 dB at most. The intensity fluctuations induced by the energy exchange between the FWM generated new waves and the original ones are trivial and the influence of FWM on RIN can be neglected. It is also found that the increase of RIN with signal power is mainly attributed to stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) rather than FWM. (C) 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.