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Proceedings of SPIE, the International Society for Optical Engineering/Proceedings of SPIE

EIT-based slow and fast light in an all-fiber system

Natalie V. Wheeler, P. S. Light, F. Couny, Fetah Benabid

Published Dec 28, 2009• 3 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We have developed an all-fiber system which we use to demonstrate slow and fast light based on electromagnetically induced transparency in a 20 meter acetylene-filled photonic microcell. Using this system, 30 ns pulses of probe light were delayed and advanced by up to 5 ns and 1 ns respectively. The delay/advance is tunable through the probe detuning and the coupling Rabi frequency. Through optimization of experimental parameters such as acetylene pressure, coupling laser power and decoherence rates it is shown that a pulse delay of 30 ns/m is possible. Limitations imposed on the fiber length by resonance group velocity dispersion and spectral reshaping are also discussed. In addition to optical buffering, we suggest a slow-light based fiber optical gyroscope with an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio of ~ 92.

DOI
10.1117/12.848643

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The group velocity at which light pulses propagate through a dispersive material system is very different from the vacuum speed of light c, One refers to light as being "slow" for v g << c (Boyd & Gauthier, 2009) or "fast" for v g > c or v g <0 (Stenner et al, 2003 ).For v g <0, the pulse envelope appears to travel backward in the material (Gehring et al, 2006), and hence it is sometimes referred to as "backward light."The subject of slow light has caused keen interest in the past decade or more, and it is possible to control the group velocity of light pulses in the dispersive materials.Interest in slow and fast light dates back to the early days of the 20th century.Sommerfeld and Brillouin (Sommerfeld & Brillouin, 1960) were intrigued by the fact that theory predicts that v g can exceed c, which leads to apparent inconsistencies with Einstein's special theory of relativity.Experimental investigations of extreme propagation velocities were performed soon after the invention of the laser (Faxvog and et al, 1970).In 1999, Harris's group research work greatly stimulated researchers' interests, which showed that light could be slowed down to 17m/s.The result was obtained in ultra cold atom clouds with the use of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which induces transparency in a material while allowing it to retain strong linear and nonlinear optical properties (Hau et al, 1999).Slow light can also be obtained through the use of the optical response of hot atomic vapors (Philips et al, 2001).These early research works require hard conditions and the slow light cannot operate in room temperature.Recently, researchers found ways to realize slow light operating in room temperature and solid-state materials, which are more suited for many practical applications, namely slow light via stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS), slow light via coherent population oscillations (CPO), tunable time delays based on group velocity dispersion or conversion/ dispersion(C/D), slow light in fiber Bragg gratings and so on.In this chapter, we describe some of the physical mechanisms that can be used to induce slow and fast light effects in room-temperature solids (Bigelow et al, 2003) and some of the exotic propagation effects that can thereby be observed.We also survey some applications of slow and fast light within the fields of quantum electronics and photonics. Fundamentals of slow and fast lightSlow and fast light refer to the group velocity of a light wave.The group velocity is the velocity most closely related to the velocity at which the peak of a light pulse moves through an optical dispersive material (Milonni, 2005), and is given by the standard result www.intechopen.comRecent Progress in Optical Fiber Research 82where n is the refractive (phase) index and ω is the angular frequency of the carrier wave of the light field.One refers to light as being slow light for v g << c, fast light for for v g > c, and backwards light for v g <0 or v g is negative.Extreme values of the group velocity invariably rely on the dominance of the second contribution to the group index of Equation ( 1).This contribution of course results from the frequency dependence of the refractive index, and for this reason extreme values of the group velocity are usually associated with the resonant or near-resonant response of material systems.According to this theory, slow light is expected in the wings of an absorption line and fast light is expected near line center, and the spatial dispersion, that is, the non-locality in space of the medium response, is another mechanism that can lead to slow light, as has been predicted (Kocharovskaya et al,2001) and observed (Strekalov et al, 2001).We catalogue the main methods to realize slow light in room temperature solid, namely slow light via stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS), slow light via coherent population oscillations (CPO), tunable time delays based on group velocity dispersion or conversion/ dispersion(C/D), slow light in fiber Bragg gratings and so on.We will describe CPO and SBS slow light in more details.

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Journal of Applied Physics•Jun 22, 2020•3 citations
We have developed an all-fiber system which we use to demonstrate slow and fast light based on electromagnetically induced transparency in a 20 meter acetylene-filled photonic microcell. Using this system, 30 ns pulses of probe light were delayed and advanced by up to 5 ns and 1 ns respectively. The delay/advance is tunable through the probe detuning and the coupling Rabi frequency. Through optimization of experimental parameters such as acetylene pressure, coupling laser power and decoherence rates it is shown that a pulse delay of 30 ns/m is possible. Limitations imposed on the fiber length by resonance group velocity dispersion and spectral reshaping are also discussed. In addition to optical buffering, we suggest a slow-light based fiber optical gyroscope with an enhanced signal-to-noise ratio of ~ 92.
We have developed an all-fiber system where we generate electromagnetically induced transparencies in a 20-m acetylene-filled photonic microcell. Using this system, pulses of probe light were delayed and advanced by up to 5 and 1 ns, respectively. The delay/advance is tunable through the probe detuning and the coupling Rabi frequency. Through optimization of experimental parameters such as acetylene pressure, coupling laser power and decoherence rates it is shown that a pulse delay of 7 ns/m is possible. Limitations imposed on the fiber length by resonance group velocity dispersion and spectral reshaping are also discussed. In addition to optical buffering, we suggest a slow-light-based fiber optical gyroscope with an enhanced SNR of ~92.
The group velocity at which light pulses propagate through a dispersive material system is very different from the vacuum speed of light c, One refers to light as being "slow" for v g << c (Boyd & Gauthier, 2009) or "fast" for v g > c or v g <0 (Stenner et al, 2003 ).For v g <0, the pulse envelope appears to travel backward in the material (Gehring et al, 2006), and hence it is sometimes referred to as "backward light."The subject of slow light has caused keen interest in the past decade or more, and it is possible to control the group velocity of light pulses in the dispersive materials.Interest in slow and fast light dates back to the early days of the 20th century.Sommerfeld and Brillouin (Sommerfeld & Brillouin, 1960) were intrigued by the fact that theory predicts that v g can exceed c, which leads to apparent inconsistencies with Einstein's special theory of relativity.Experimental investigations of extreme propagation velocities were performed soon after the invention of the laser (Faxvog and et al, 1970).In 1999, Harris's group research work greatly stimulated researchers' interests, which showed that light could be slowed down to 17m/s.The result was obtained in ultra cold atom clouds with the use of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT), which induces transparency in a material while allowing it to retain strong linear and nonlinear optical properties (Hau et al, 1999).Slow light can also be obtained through the use of the optical response of hot atomic vapors (Philips et al, 2001).These early research works require hard conditions and the slow light cannot operate in room temperature.Recently, researchers found ways to realize slow light operating in room temperature and solid-state materials, which are more suited for many practical applications, namely slow light via stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS), slow light via coherent population oscillations (CPO), tunable time delays based on group velocity dispersion or conversion/ dispersion(C/D), slow light in fiber Bragg gratings and so on.In this chapter, we describe some of the physical mechanisms that can be used to induce slow and fast light effects in room-temperature solids (Bigelow et al, 2003) and some of the exotic propagation effects that can thereby be observed.We also survey some applications of slow and fast light within the fields of quantum electronics and photonics. Fundamentals of slow and fast lightSlow and fast light refer to the group velocity of a light wave.The group velocity is the velocity most closely related to the velocity at which the peak of a light pulse moves through an optical dispersive material (Milonni, 2005), and is given by the standard result www.intechopen.comRecent Progress in Optical Fiber Research 82where n is the refractive (phase) index and ω is the angular frequency of the carrier wave of the light field.One refers to light as being slow light for v g << c, fast light for for v g > c, and backwards light for v g <0 or v g is negative.Extreme values of the group velocity invariably rely on the dominance of the second contribution to the group index of Equation ( 1).This contribution of course results from the frequency dependence of the refractive index, and for this reason extreme values of the group velocity are usually associated with the resonant or near-resonant response of material systems.According to this theory, slow light is expected in the wings of an absorption line and fast light is expected near line center, and the spatial dispersion, that is, the non-locality in space of the medium response, is another mechanism that can lead to slow light, as has been predicted (Kocharovskaya et al,2001) and observed (Strekalov et al, 2001).We catalogue the main methods to realize slow light in room temperature solid, namely slow light via stimulated Brillouin scattering(SBS), slow light via coherent population oscillations (CPO), tunable time delays based on group velocity dispersion or conversion/ dispersion(C/D), slow light in fiber Bragg gratings and so on.We will describe CPO and SBS slow light in more details.
We have demonstrated that stimulated Brillouin scattering can be used to generate all-optical slow-light pulse delays of greater than a pulse length for pulses as short as 16 ns in a single-mode fiber. Since the induced delay is generated for wavelengths detuned from the pump field by the Brillouin frequency, tuning near an electronic resonance of the material is not required and thus delays can be induced at telecommunication wavelengths. This represents a significant improvement over previous demonstrations of slow light in solids and is an important step towards developing an all-optical tunable delay line for telecommunications. In addition, these results strongly suggest that analogous delays can be achieved using stimulated Raman scattering at telecommunication data rates.
We comprehensively simulate and experimentally demonstrate a novel approach to generate tunable electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) in a fully integrated silicon photonics circuit. It can also generate tunable fast and slow light. The circuit is a single ring resonator with two integrated tunable reflectors inside, which form an embedded Fabry-Perot (FP) cavity inside the ring cavity. The mode of the FP cavity can be controlled by tuning the reflections using integrated thermo-optic tuners. Under correct tuning conditions, the interaction of the FP mode and the ring resonance mode will generate a Fano resonance and an EIT response. The extinction ratio and bandwidth of the EIT can be tuned by controlling the reflectors. Measured group delay proves that both fast light and slow light can be generated under different tuning conditions. A maximum group delay of 1100 ps is observed because of EIT. Pulse advance around 1200 ps is also demonstrated.
The delayed optical nutation effect has been used to evaluate the longitudinal relaxation time (T1) inside an acetylene-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber (HC-PCF) at room temperature. In this experiment, sequences of two short optical pulses of 30 ns and 15 ns in width, respectively, with the maximum peak power up to ∼2.5 W, were generated at a laser wavelength of 1530.37 nm, which corresponds to the acetylene ro-vibrational P9 absorption line. The gas pressure inside the 1 m-long HC-PCF varied in the range 0.1–1 Torr. Numerical simulations based on the optical Bloch equations allowed us to evaluate the longitudinal relaxation time as T1∼9ns, proving to be fundamentally limited by the transit-time broadening. Also, the obtained results revealed the influence of slow and fast molecules in the form of a non-exponential decay of the delayed-nutation signals.