We investigate numerically zero-gain Brillouin slow light in a single mode tellurite fiber. The effects of the bandwidth ratio β between the loss and gain on the pulse delay and widening are discussed in detail. Our simulated results show that, the time delay in 200 m long tellurite fiber can reach 255 ns and the corresponding widening factor of the input pulse (pulse width ∼ 20 ns) is less than 3 when the pump power is fixed at 1194.6 mW and β=10. The limitation of zero-gain slow light system is also discussed.
We investigate numerically zero-gain Brillouin slow light in a single mode tellurite fiber. The effects of the bandwidth ratio β between the loss and gain on the pulse delay and widening are discussed in detail. Our simulated results show that, the time delay in 200 m long tellurite fiber can reach 255 ns and the corresponding widening factor of the input pulse (pulse width ∼ 20 ns) is less than 3 when the pump power is fixed at 1194.6 mW and β=10. The limitation of zero-gain slow light system is also discussed.
Highly efficient fast light propagation of optical pulse at negative group velocity was demonstrated in a single-mode tellurite fiber embedded in a Brillouin laser ring cavity. A maximum advancement of 385 ns and an average time advancement per unit power of 3.77 ns/mW were observed when the cavity was pumped with a 1-MHz sinusoidal wave signal at a power level of 102 mW. Pump loss of 7.9 dB was also monitored at the maximum fast light generation, showing an average slope efficiency of 48.7 ns/dB.
We study numerically all-optical slow-light delays in room-temperature single-mode optical fibers induced by stimulated Brillouin scattering. We consider the propagation of a pulse through a cw-pumped Brillouin fiber amplifier, where the carrier frequency of the pulse is tuned near the Stokes resonance. Pulse delay and broadening of the Stokes pulse are studied in the small-signal and gain-saturation regimes. Pulse delay is shown to be limited by saturation of the Brillouin amplifier. In the small-signal regime, both time delay and pulse broadening increase with increasing gain. In the gain-saturation regime, both time delay and broadening decrease with increasing gain, and the pulse even achieves advancement. Time delay of more than one pulse-width is observed with modest pulse distortion, and over one pulse-width advancement can be obtained with larger pulse distortion in the gain-saturation regime.
Dynamic control of the speed of a light signal, based on stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibers, was theoretically studied and also experimentally demonstrated as the core object of this thesis. To date, slow light based on stimulated Brillouin scattering has shown the unmatched flexibility to offer an efficient timing tool for the development of all-optical future router. Nevertheless, the seeming perfect Brillouin slow light suffered from three major obstacles: naturally narrow signal bandwidth, strong change of signal amplitude, and significant signal distortion. The essential contribution of this work has been mostly dedicated to resolve all those impairments so as to make Brillouin slow light a completely operating all-optical delay line for practical applications. Actually, high capability of tailoring the spectral distribution of the effective Brillouin resonance makes possible to resolve partially or completely all those problems. First of all, a broadband spectral window was passively obtained in between two Brillouin gain/loss resonances by simply appending two segments of fibers showing different Brillouin frequency shifts. The global Brillouin gain of the concatenated fibers manifests a gain/loss doublet resonance showing a broad window in between gain/loss peaks. In practice, this configuration has a crucial advantage that it removes the need of the pump modulation, generally used to create a polychromatic pump source. Therefore, a broadband Brillouin slow and fast light was simple realized with a reduced distortion. Secondly, the signal amplification or attenuation associated to the signal delay was completely compensated by superposing Brillouin gain and loss resonances with identical depth but different width. As a result, the Brillouin gain led to effectively a spectral hole in the center of the broadband absorption and opened a transparent window while the sharp change in the refractive index was preserve. This way it makes possible to realize zero-gain Brillouin slow light. This configuration was also exploited to produce Brillouin fast light with a total absence of signal loss, simply by swapping the spectral position of the two pumps. At last, a signal was continuously delayed through a Brillouin fiber delay line without any distortion. Due to the strong induced dispersion, pulse broadening is a major difficulty in all slow light systems and it is impossible to compensate such broadening using a linear system. Therefore, a conventional Brillouin slow light system was combined with a nonlinear optical fiber loop mirror that gives a nonlinear quadratic transmission. Using this configuration, the inevitable pulse broadening was completely compensated at the output of the loop and a signal was delayed up to one symbol without any distortion. Brillouin slow light systems were further studied in the spectral domain. For a given Brillouin resonance the spectrum of a light pulse was optimized to better match the Brillouin bandwidth. When the time envelope of a pulse was properly shaped, it was clearly observed that the spectral width of the pulse became minimized while preserving the pulse duration. This way the maximum time delay through Brillouin slow light could be enhanced for a fixed pulse width. Brillouin fast light was even realized in total absence of any pump source, which is a plain requirement for the generation of Brillouin slow or fast light. This self-generated delay line, key contribution of this thesis, relies on both spontaneous and stimulated Brillouin scattering in optical fibers. In this implementation, a light signal was strongly boosted above the so-called Brillouin threshold, so that most power of the signal was transferred to a backward propagating wave, namely the generation of amplified spontaneous Stokes wave. Since the center frequency of the intense Stokes wave is below the signal frequency by exactly Brillouin shift of the fiber used, this wave led to a Brillouin loss band centered at the signal frequency. Consequently, the signal experienced fast light propagation and the propagation velocity of the signal was self-controlled, simply by varying the signal input power. This technique has many practical advantages such as its high simplicity of the configuration and an invariant signal power in the output of this delay line. Additionally, this system self-adapts the signal bandwidth as the spectrum of the amplified Stokes wave matches the spectral distribution of the signal. An alternative method to generate all-optical delay line was proposed instead of slow light. This scheme makes use of the combination of wavelength conversion and group velocity dispersion. This type of delay line was mainly aimed at improving the storage capability of delaying element. The wavelength of a signal was simply and efficiently converted at a desired wavelength using cross gain modulation in semiconductor optical amplifiers. Then the converted signal was delivered to a high dispersive medium and arrived at the end of the medium with relative time delay due to the group velocity dispersion. A fractional delay of 140 was continuously produced through this delay line for a signal with a duration of 100 ps, preserving signal bandwidth and wavelength. The effect of slow light on linear interactions between light and matter was experimentally investigated to clarify the current scientific argument regarding slow light-enhanced Beer-Lambert absorption. It was predicted that real slowing of the light group velocity could enhance the molecular linear absorptions so as to improve the sensitivity of this type of sensing. However, the experimental results unambiguously show that material slow light (slow light in traveling wave media) does not enhance the Beer-Lambert absorption.
We show a simple method of time delay enhancement in slow-light systems based on the effect of stimulated Brillouin scattering. The method is based on the reduction of the absolute Brillouin gain by a loss produced by an additional pump laser. With this method we achieved pulse delays of nearly 100 ns in a standard single-mode fiber. In the presented approach the delay or acceleration of optical signals is decoupled from their amplification or attenuation, which allows the adaptation of the pulse amplitudes to the given application.
Slow light technology will play a key role in future all-optical communication. The slow-light technology based on stimulated Brillouin scattering has become a research highlight because of its additional advantages, such as compatibility of the devices with existing telecommunication systems, room-temperature operation, and tunable at arbitrary wavelengths. According to the propagation of a cw pulse through a Brillouin fiber amplifier, whose frequency is near the Stokes resonance, via three-wave coupling equations, both pump depletion and fiber losses taken into consideration, the principle of how slow-light effect based on stimulated Brillouin scattering produced and the mathematical expression of time delay are strictly deduced. A delay of 8 ns is obtained when the input Stokes pulse is 200ns and the SBS (stimulated Brillouin scattering) gain G is ~18 in our designed experiment of SBS slow-light system. Then the extent of transformation from pump waves to Stokes waves is measured using MATLAB numerical simulation according to the experiment dates, based on the relation between output pump light power and input pump light power and also the relation between output Stokes light power and input pump light power. And the relation between the input light power and propagation distance is discussed as well. Finally the relation between slow light pulse delay and SBS gain is also obtained.
The manipulation of the group velocity of optical signals (slow and fast light) has many possible applications in telecommunications, sensing, nonlinear optics, and so on. The exploitation of the effect of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is of special interest for the alteration of the group velocity in optical fibers, since it just requires standard telecom equipment and low-to-moderate optical power. However, each delay in one single, low-gain SBS-based slow-light system is accompanied by a pulse broadening. This is a result of the inherent Kramers–Kronig relations among the gain, the phase change, and the accompanied group velocity. For an ideal flat gain, the phase change is nonideal, and for an ideal phase change the gain curve leads to a broadening. Furthermore, if the gain bandwidth is adapted to the signal by broadening, the delay will be reduced. Thus the signal broadening can be reduced by several methods for one single low-gain slow-light system, but it cannot be zero. Here, we will show how a zero-broadening SBS-based slow light can be achieved with several methods. The basic idea is a reshaping of the original pulse in a second stage by saturation of the SBS system, or by the superposition of two gains. As will be shown, all of these systems show an almost ideal overall gain and phase function over the bandwidth of the pulses. Thus, SBS-based slow light with a delay bandwidth product of 1 bit and zero distortion is possible.