Patent ID: 7113326

Claim:
An optical fiber wavelength converter, which inputs signal light and pumping light into an end of a highly nonlinear optical fiber to obtain converted light of the signal light from the other end of the highly nonlinear optical fiber, wherein a wavelength λp of the pumping light is set within a range from λ 0 −1 nanometers to λ 0 +1 nanometers, where λ 0 is a zero-dispersion wavelength of the highly nonlinear optical fiber, an absolute value of a dispersion slope of the highly nonlinear optical fiber with the wavelength λp of the pumping light is not more than 0.02 ps/nm 2 /km, a nonlinear coefficient γ of the highly nonlinear optical fiber with the wavelength λp of the pumping light is not less than 10/W/km, and a change in a conversion bandwidth D defined as D=|λp−λs 2 | is not more than 30 percent at variable environmental temperatures ranging from 0° C. to 40° C., where E 0 is defined to be a conversion efficiency, when the wavelength λp of the pumping light is set to any wavelength within the range from λ 0 −1 nanometers to λ 0 +1 nanometers and a wavelength λs of the signal light is set to λp−5 nanometers, λs 2 is a wavelength of the signal light in which the conversion efficiency becomes lower than E 0 by 3 dB when only the wavelength λs of the signal light is changed at the fixed wavelength λp of the pumping light.