Investigation of the noise figure in a degenerate dual-pump phase-sensitive amplifier using a multi-wave model

A semi-classical seven-wave model is developed to investigate the noise performances of a degenerate dual-pump phase-sensitive amplifier. This approach takes into account the transfer to the signal, through multiple four-wave mixing processes, of the vacuum fluctuations injected into high-order waves. This effect leads to a degradation of the noise figure of the amplifier with respect to the 0 dB value predicted by the usual three-wave model. However, it is proved that a careful choice of the fiber dispersion allows us to use high-order waves to enhance the signal gain without degrading the noise figure above 1 dB.