Abstract
The ability to manipulate the speed of light has recently become one
of the most exciting emergent topics in optics. There are several experimental
demonstrations showing the capability to slow down light more than six orders
of magnitude in a variety of media, ranging from atomic vapor, solid state
crystal, to semiconductors. These results have led to intensive research into
new materials, devices, and system studies that examine their impact to new
applications. It is believed that we are on the verge of a dramatic change
in the way we envision and construct communication, processing and control
systems. One direct application of slow and fast light devices is in the area
of communications. One grand challenge remaining in information technology
today is to store and buffer optical signals directly in optical format. As
such, optical signals must be converted to electronic signals to route, switch,
or be processed. This resulted in significant latencies and traffic congestions
in current networks. In addition, keeping the data in optical domain during
the routing process can greatly reduce the power, complexity and size of the
routers. To this end, a controllable optical delay line can effectively function
as an optical buffer, and the storage is proportional to the variability of
the group velocity. In addition to optical buffers, slow and fast light devices
can be used as tunable true-time delay elements in microwave photonics, which
are important for remotely controlling phased array antenna. Other novel applications
include nonlinear optics, optical signal processing, and quantum information
processing. There are various approaches that can be used to vary the optical
group velocity. Ultraslow or fast group velocity may result from a large material
dispersion, waveguide dispersion, or both. In this paper, the authors provide
a review of recent progress of slow and fast light using semiconductor devices.
Specifically, they will discuss results obtained using semiconductor quantum-well/quantum-dot
absorber and optical amplifiers. Slow and fast light are controllable electrically
by changing the bias current or voltage as well as optically by changing the
pump laser intensity and wavelength. Delay-bandwidth tradeoff and other figures
of merits are analyzed.
© 2006 IEEE
PDF Article
More Like This
Slow light in semiconductor quantum wells
Pei-Cheng Ku, Forrest Sedgwick, Connie J. Chang-Hasnain, Phedon Palinginis, Tao Li, Hailin Wang, Shu-Wei Chang, and Shun-Lien Chuang
Opt. Lett. 29(19) 2291-2293 (2004)
Cited By
You do not have subscription access to this journal. Cited by links are available to subscribers only. You may subscribe either as an Optica member, or as an authorized user of your institution.
Contact your librarian or system administrator
or
Login to access Optica Member Subscription
Add to BibSonomy