Previously demonstrated slow light is still far from applications, particularly due to the limited bandwidth and control speed. Although semiconductor-based slow light has the high bandwidth and sub-nanosecond control speed, slow light was observed only in the absorption regime with attenuation, while fast light observed in the gain regime with amplification. The large power difference in two regimes makes the use of the optical delay impractical. We report novel slow light in the gain regime, with a high power comparable to that of fast light, utilizing the anomalous gain characteristic in a gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifier. The slow light is tunable to fast light with the current as the only variable. Additional high speed operation, fast delay control, and wide range of operation wavelength make the present approach practical.

© 2009 OSA

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13. J. M. Oh, H. B. Choi, D. Lee, and S. J. Ahn, “Incorporation of a fiber Bragg grating to improve the efficiency of a 1580-nm-band tunable fiber ring laser,” Opt. Lett. 27(8), 589–591 (2002). [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Appl. Phys. Lett.

• H. Su and S. L. Chuang, “Room temperature slow and fast light in quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifiers,” Appl. Phys. Lett. 88(6), 061102 (2006). [CrossRef]

IEEE J. Quantum Electron.

• L. Pleumeekers, M. A. Dupertuis, T. Hessler, P. E. Selbmann, S. Haacke, and B. Deveaud, “Longitudinal spatial hole burning and associated nonlinear gain in gain-clamped semiconductor optical amplifiers,” IEEE J. Quantum Electron. 34(5), 879–886 (1998). [CrossRef]

Nat. Photonics

• F. Xia, L. Sekaric, and Y. Vlasov, “Ultracompact optical buffers on a silicon chip,” Nat. Photonics 1(1), 65–71 (2007). [CrossRef]
• L. Thévenaz, “Slow and fast light in optical fibers,” Nat. Photonics 2(8), 474–481 (2008). [CrossRef]
• T. Baba, “Slow light in photonic crystals,” Nat. Photonics 2(8), 465–473 (2008). [CrossRef]

Nature

• L. V. Hau, S. E. Harris, Z. Dutton, and C. H. Behroozi, “Light speed reduction to 17 meters per second in an ultracold atomic gas,” Nature 397(6720), 594–598 (1999). [CrossRef]
• Y. A. Vlasov, M. O’Boyle, H. F. Hamann, and S. J. McNab, “Active control of slow light on a chip with photonic crystal waveguides,” Nature 438(7064), 65–69 (2005). [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Opt. Express

• K. Y. Song, M. G. Herráez, and L. Thévenaz, “Observation of pulse delaying and advancement in optical fibers using stimulated Brillouin scattering,” Opt. Express 13(1), 82–88 (2005). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
• H. Su, P. Kondratko, and S. L. Chuang, “Variable optical delay using population oscillation and four-wave-mixing in semiconductor optical amplifiers,” Opt. Express 14(11), 4800–4807 (2006). [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Opt. Lett.

• A. Matsudaira, D. Lee, P. Kondratko, D. Nielsen, S. L. Chuang, N. J. Kim, J. M. Oh, S. H. Pyun, W. G. Jeong, and J. W. Jang, “Electrically tunable slow and fast lights in a quantum-dot semiconductor optical amplifier near 1.55 µm,” Opt. Lett. 32(19), 2894–2896 (2007). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
• P. C. Ku, F. Sedgwick, C. J. Chang-Hasnain, P. Palinginis, T. Li, H. Wang, S. W. Chang, and S. L. Chuang, “Slow light in semiconductor quantum wells,” Opt. Lett. 29(19), 2291–2293 (2004). [CrossRef] [PubMed]
• J. M. Oh, H. B. Choi, D. Lee, and S. J. Ahn, “Incorporation of a fiber Bragg grating to improve the efficiency of a 1580-nm-band tunable fiber ring laser,” Opt. Lett. 27(8), 589–591 (2002). [CrossRef] [PubMed]

Phys. Rev. Lett.

• M. S. Bigelow, N. N. Lepeshkin, and R. W. Boyd, “Observation of ultraslow light propagation in a ruby crystal at room temperature,” Phys. Rev. Lett. 90(11), 113903 (2003). [CrossRef] [PubMed]

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