Pump-degenerate phase-sensitive amplification in chalcogenide waveguides

We experimentally demonstrate phase-sensitive amplification based on pump-degenerate four-wave mixing in dispersion-engineered chalcogenide waveguides. We achieve a maximum extinction ratio of 18 dB with a pump peak power of 6.7 W. The variation of the gain as a function of relative phase, pump power, and bandwidth is theoretically analyzed and experimentally studied. Additionally, an analytical formula relating the phase-transfer curve to the experimental gain curve is derived. Numerical calculations show strong agreement with the experimental results.