High-fidelity, broadband stimulated-Brillouin-scattering-based slow light using fast noise modulation.
We demonstrate a 5-GHz-broadband tunable slow-light device based on stimulated Brillouin scattering in a standard highly-nonlinear optical fiber pumped by a noise-current-modulated laser beam. The noisemodulation waveform uses an optimized pseudo-random distribution of the laser drive voltage to obtain an optimal flat-topped gain profile, which minimizes the pulse distortion and maximizes pulse delay for a given pump power. In comparison with a previous slow-modulation method, eye-diagram and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) analysis show that this broadband slow-light technique significantly increases the fidelity of a delayed data sequence, while maintaining the delay performance. A fractional delay of 0.81 with a SNR of 5.2 is achieved at the pump power of 350 mW using a 2-km-long highly nonlinear fiber with the fast noise-modulation method, demonstrating a 50% increase in eye-opening and a 36% increase in SNR in the comparison.
Department of Physics, Duke University, Durham, NC 27708, USA. yunhui.zhu@duke.edu
Yunhui
Y
Zhu
Myungjun
M
Lee
Mark A
MA
Neifeld
Daniel J
DJ
Gauthier
D017076:Computer-Aided Design; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D005336:Fiber Optic Technology / Q000295:instrumentation*; D007834:Lasers; D008872:Microwaves; D012031:Refractometry / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013685:Telecommunications / Q000295:instrumentation*