Enhanced Performance & Functionality of Tunable Delay Lines
Abstract
We demonstrated dramatic enhancements in the performance and functionality of tunable optical delay lines. We used tunable wavelength conversion combined with inter-channel chromatic dispersion and intra-channel dispersion compensation to achieve continuously tunable optical delays. Extremely long delays at very high bit-rates were demonstrated with minimal data distortion. We demonstrated delays for different data modulation formats, including on-off-keying and spectrally efficient DQPSK (differential -quadrature-phase-shift-keying .We used: (i) low dispersion slope, highly nonlinear fiber to achieve wide-bandwidth wavelength conversion based on four-wave mixing and (ii) a highly dispersive element with low dispersion slope to introduce a large linear change in time delay as a function of wavelength. Since the dispersive element also introduces data-destroying intra-channel chromatic dispersion, we made use of spectrally efficient DQPSK which increased the tolerance to all orders of dispersion. We demonstrated that tunable optical delays can potentially be used in a dynamic, reconfigurable, and heterogeneous optical system.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Aug 01, 2012
- Accession Number
- ADA570141
Entities
People
- Alan E. Willner
Organizations
- University of Southern California