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International Conference on Transparent Optical Networks

Achievements in slow and fast light in optical fibres

Luc Thévenaz A

Published Jun 1, 2008• 1 citation
Publisher

Abstract

The ubiquitous role occupied by optical fibres in modern photonic systems has steadily stimulated research to realize slow and fast light devices directly in this close-to-perfect transmission line. This potentially offers the key advantage of a direct and flexible integration in most existing optical systems. The recent progress in the realization of optically-controlled delays in optical fibres, under normal environmental conditions and in the high-transparency spectral region, has paved the way towards real applications based on slow and fast light. This presentation shows the state-of-the-art research in this fascinating field and the possible outcomes in the near future.

DOI
10.1109/icton.2008.4598375

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The ubiquitous role occupied by optical fibres in modern photonic systems has steadily stimulated research to realize slow and fast light devices directly in this close-to-perfect transmission line. This potentially offers the key advantage of a direct and flexible integration in most existing optical systems. The recent progress in the realization of optically-controlled delays in optical fibres, under normal environmental conditions and in the high-transparency spectral region, has paved the way towards real applications based on slow and fast light. This presentation shows the state-of-the-art research in this fascinating field and the possible outcomes in the near future.
The ubiquitous role of optical fibers in modern photonic systems has stimulated research to realize slow and fast light devices directly in this close-to-perfect transmission line. Recent progress in developing optically-controlled delays in optical fibers, operating under normal environmental conditions and at telecommunications wavelengths, has paved the way towards real applications for slow and fast light. Advanced schemes can be realized thanks to the extremely flexible possibility to shape the gain spectrum to make it optimized for applications. Ultra wide bandwidth, delaying with flat amplitude response and lower distortion were successfully demonstrated this way.
Slow- and fast-light is the control of the velocity of light in a medium by light. As a fascinating new field in physics there is a fundamental interest on this effect on the one side, but on the other side there exist a lot of practical applications for telecommunication and information systems. Among these are optical signal processing, the radio frequency-photonics, nonlinear optics and spectroscopy in time domain. Furthermore, the slow- and fast-light effect can be seen as a key technology for optical delay lines, buffers, equalizers and synchronizers in packed switched networks. To realize the effect there are different methods and material systems possible. Beside these especially the nonlinear effect of stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) is of special interest because it has several advantages. This article gives an overview about the fundamentals and limits of the slow-and fast-light effect in general and based on the SBS in optical fibers. Some experimental results which were achieved so far are shown.
The predominantplace occupiedby optical fibers inmodernphotonic systems has steadily stimulated research to realize slow and fast light devices directly in this close-to-perfect transmission line. This potentially offers the key advantage of a seamless and flexible integration in most optical transmission systems. The main obstacle for such a realization is related to the highly disordered amorphous nature of the silica constituting the optical fibers, prohibiting the use of narrowband atomic transitions. The most efficient approach to create a narrowband gain or loss in optical fibers remains the exploitation of an optical interaction requiring a strict phase matching condition to be satisfied. This can be realized using the nonlinear optical response of the material that offers the possibility to transfer the energy from one optical wave to another lightwave. For instance, a resonant coupling over a narrow frequency range is observed in parametric interactions, which are conditioned to the generation of a third idler wave for the fulfillment of a phase matching condition. The optical wave that benefits from the energy transfer will actually experience a linear gain and therefore be subject to light slowing, while the depleted wave undergoes a linear loss and will experience a fast light effect.
The control of the group velocity of optical signals has been widely demonstrated using various optical phenomena and different media. Slow and fast light is achieved in a controllable manner by modifying the refractive index dispersion through light induced modifications of the material or the structural properties of the medium. The potential for a continuous tuning of the phase or time delay of broadband microwave signals modulating the optical carrier opens previously unexplored horizons. The talk will review the recent advancements and the future directions of slow and fast light research with an emphasis on microwave-photonics applications.