Abstract
We report the experimental demonstration of tunable ultraslow light using a 1.55 um vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) at room temperature. By varying the bias current around lasing threshold, we achieve tunable delay of an intensity modulated signal input. Delays up to 100 ps are measured for a broadband signal with modulation frequency of 2.8 GHz. With a VCSEL design optimized for amplification and leveraging the scalability of VCSEL arrays, delays of multiple modulation periods are feasible.
Highlights
There has been tremendous interest in variable all-optical delay lines and buffers for applications in optical communications, phased-array antennas and optical signal processing [1,2,3,4,5]
We report the use of a vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser (VCSEL) operated as Fabry-Perot (FP) amplifier [14] to achieve tunable group delays for broadband signals at room temperature
Comparison with the L-I characteristics shows that the signal input power is on the same order as the VCSEL emission around threshold
Summary
There has been tremendous interest in variable all-optical delay lines and buffers for applications in optical communications, phased-array antennas and optical signal processing [1,2,3,4,5]. Over the last couple of years, slow light has been demonstrated in a variety of systems using approaches based on material or waveguide dispersion [6,7,8,9] While differing in their underlying physical mechanisms, the approaches share fundamental limitations with respect to the maximum achievable delay-bandwidth product. Most demonstrations exhibit limited bandwidth not suited to accommodate broadband signals in the GHz-range, as required in most communications applications. This is one main reason why, up to this point, all-optical buffers still do not exist in practice
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