Tunable optical delay line based on single-sideband suppressed-carrier modulation

A technique to electrically control the time shift of ultrashort optical pulses without the generation of replicas is demonstrated on the basis of frequency-to-time conversion and single-sideband suppressed-carrier modulation of the optical spectrum. Pulses are advanced or delayed according to the modulated sideband. The time shift depends on the intensity of the frequency-to-time conversion and the frequency of the electro-optical modulation. The technique can be applied to pulses with any duration although it is susceptible to pulse widening because of the combined effect of nonlinear frequency-to-time conversion and electro-optical modulation. Experimental results show dynamic shifting of ultrashort optical pulses up to 100 ps at the expenses of widening originating from the third-order dispersion of the fiber.