Processing of optical combs with fiber optic parametric amplifiers

Low noise optical frequency combs consist of equally spaced narrow-linewidth optical tones. They are useful in many applications including, for example, line-by-line pulse shaping, THz generation, and coherent communications. In such applications the comb spacing, extent of spectral coverage, degree of spectral flatness, optical tone power and tone-to-noise ratio represent key considerations. Simultaneously achieving the level of performance required in each of these parameters is often challenging using existing comb generation technologies. Herein we suggest and demonstrate how fiber optic parametric amplifiers can be used to enhance all of these key comb parameters, allowing frequency span multiplication, low noise amplification with simultaneous comb spectrum flattening, and improvement in optical tone-to-noise ratio through various phase insensitive as well as phase sensitive implementations.