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Europhysics Letters (EPL)

Observation of superluminal and slow light propagation in erbium-doped optical fiber

Aaron Schweinsberg, Nikolay N. Lepeshkin, Matthew S. Bigelow, Robert W. Boyd, Sebastián Jarabo

Published Dec 1, 2005• 185 citations
Publisher

Abstract

We observe both extremely slow and superluminal pulse propagation speeds at room temperature in an erbium-doped fiber (EDF). A signal at 1550 nm is sent through an erbium-doped fiber with varying powers of a 980 nm pump. The degree of signal delay or advancement is found to depend significantly on the pump intensity. We observe a maximum fractional advancement of 0.124 and a maximum fractional delay of 0.089. The effect is demonstrated both for a sinusoidally modulated signal and for Gaussian pulses. The ability to control the sign and magnitude of the pulse velocity could have important implications for applications in photonics.

DOI
10.1209/epl/i2005-10371-0

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We observe both extremely slow and superluminal pulse propagation speeds at room temperature in an erbium-doped fiber (EDF). A signal at 1550 nm is sent through an erbium-doped fiber with varying powers of a 980 nm pump. The degree of signal delay or advancement is found to depend significantly on the pump intensity. We observe a maximum fractional advancement of 0.124 and a maximum fractional delay of 0.089. The effect is demonstrated both for a sinusoidally modulated signal and for Gaussian pulses. The ability to control the sign and magnitude of the pulse velocity could have important implications for applications in photonics.
The slow light technology of the rectangle signal propagating in erbium-doped fiber (EDF) has potential applications in the fields of all optical communication and optical fiber sensing. The method of using harmonics fractional delay to evaluate the slow/fast light of rectangle signal propagating in the EDF is proposed, and the characteristics of phase delay for fundamental and high order harmonics components are analyzed for the first time based on the rate equations and the theory of the coherent population oscillations (CPO). We experimentally demonstrate the dependences of fundamental fractional delay on input power and optical gain. The maximum fractional delay 20% is obtained when the input power is about 8 mW without pump. The negative fractional delay-20% is also achieved and it will increase with the rising of the optical gain. The Nth-order fractional delays (N=1, 3, 5, 7) of rectangle signal propagating in EDF without pump are investigated. Their maximum fractional delays are all about 0.07 and the corresponding fundamental modulation frequencies are 22, 7, 5 and 3 Hz, respectively. What is more, the Nth-order fractional delays (N=1, 3, 5, 7) with pump are also investigated. Their maximum fractional delays are all about-0.135 and the corresponding fundamental modulation frequencies are 175, 58, 35 and 25 Hz, respectively. The experiments indicate that the maximum Nth-order fractional delays are equal and they will be achieved at the frequency f/N (the fundamental harmonic fractional delay is maximum at the modulation frequency f). The results show good agreement with CPO and the frequency is also located in the spectral burning hole.
We experimentally and theoretically study the propagation of a 1536 nm light pulse superposed on a continuous wave background in a highly doped erbium fiber pumped at 977 nm. We observe a transition from subluminal to superluminal propagation with the pulse bandwidth. Furthermore, an improvement of the pulse delay and pulse distortion when increasing the pulse peak and keeping constant the background power is reported. These results are due to the relation between the pump-broadened transparency hole (induced by the coherent population oscillations) and the competition between gain and absorption along the fiber.