Patent ID: 6961170

Claim:
A small-signal optical parametric amplifier (OPA) comprising: a narrowband pump source, wherein the narrowband pump source produces a pump output; means for suppressing stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS), coupled to the narrowband pump source; a booster amplifier, coupled to the SBS-suppressed pump output, wherein said booster amplifier amplifies said SBS-suppressed pump output to a sufficient power level for achieving parametric gain; a bandpass filter, coupled to the booster amplifier, wherein the bandpass filter bandpass filters the amplified, SBS-suppressed pump output and suppresses amplified spontaneous emission (ASE) in the pump output; a low-loss coupler, coupled to the bandpass filter and the receiving end of a small-signal transmission line, wherein said low-loss coupler couples the filtered, amplified, SBS-suppressed pump output with a small-signal received from the small-signal transmission line; and means for performing non-linear mixing, coupled to the injection coupler, wherein the non-linear mixing means parametrically amplifies the small-signal with the filtered, amplified, SBS-suppressed pump output to produce an amplified output signal.