Light Controlling Light in an Optical Fibre: From Very Slow to Faster-Than-Light Speed

Author

Thévenaz, Luc ; Song, Kwang-Yong ; Chin, Sang-Hoon ; Gonzalez-Herraez, Miguel

Author_Institution

Ecole Polytech. Fed. de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne

fYear

2007

fDate

3-5 Oct. 2007

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

6

Abstract

We demonstrate a method to achieve an extremely wide and flexible external control of the group velocity of signals as they propagate along an optical fibre. This control is achieved by means of the gain and loss mechanisms of stimulated Brillouin scattering in the fibre itself. Our experiments show that group velocities below 71,000 km/s on one hand, well exceeding the speed of light in vacuum on the other hand and even negative group velocities can readily be obtained with a simple benchtop experimental setup. 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.

Keywords

optical distortion; optical fibres; optical variables control; stimulated Brillouin scattering; velocity control; distortion; light signal speed control; negative group velocities; optical fibre; stimulated Brillouin scattering; Bandwidth; Brillouin scattering; Delay; Lighting control; Optical control; Optical fiber losses; Optical fibers; Optical propagation; Ultraviolet sources; Velocity control; Fiber optics; Nonlinear optics; Slow & fast light; stimulated Brillouin scattering;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Intelligent Signal Processing, 2007. WISP 2007. IEEE International Symposium on

Conference_Location

Alcala de Henares

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-0829-0

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-0830-6

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/WISP.2007.4447517

Filename

4447517