Single sideband data retrieval using swept-carrier optical memory

Haifeng Lin, T. Wang, Geoffrey A. Wilson +1 more

T. Wang, Haifeng Lin, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG

Summary form only given. The swept-carrier optical data storage technique provides high storage density together with high read-write speed. In this technique, data is temporally encoded on a frequency-swept optical data beam. This beam along with a cotemporal, frequency-swept, reference beam illuminate a storage material and act to record the temporal structure of the data beam. We point out here that by eliminating the frequency offset between swept-carrier data and reference beams, one records only a single sideband of the data beam and on reconstruction can generate a single-sideband signal beam containing essentially the same modulation information as the original dual-sideband data beam. This result may be useful in both memory storage applications where it may lead to higher spectral storage densities and in communications as a means of generating single-sideband optical beams, albeit with an intrinsic frequency chirp.

L. A. Nefedev

Haifeng Lin, T. Wang, THOMAS W. MOSSBERG

Spectral holography provides for the storage of data-encoded, time-domain optical signals in frequency-selective recording materials. This capability may form the basis for entirely new classes of ultrahigh-speed and -density optical storage devices. We demonstrate the implementation of swept-carrier spectral-holographic data storage in a single-sideband mode. Temporal-waveform information originally encoded in doublesideband format is re-created but stripped of one of its sidebands. The process described can be used to achieve higher spectral storage densities or as an optical single-sideband conversion device.

A. Kozma

Haifeng Lin, T. Wang, Geoffrey A. Wilson +1 more

Swept-carrier time-domain optical memory [Opt. Lett. 17, 535 (1992)] has been proposed as a means of storing optical data streams in inhomogeneously broadened spectral recording materials. The process provides for full utilization of the material storage bandwidth regardless of the data rate and permits storage of data sequences with durations exceeding the material dephasing time. We report what we believe is the first experimental demonstration of this storage process. Our experiments, implemented with frequency-swept diode lasers and Tm(3+):YAG storage material, demonstrate single-event storage of 98-bit data streams whose duration is an order of magnitude longer than the material dephasing time.