Long Optical Delay Lines Enhanced by Ring Configuration in Optical Fibres

A long optically controlled delay line enhanced by ring configuration is demonstrated by using the group-velocity control of signal pulses based on stimulated Brillouin scattering. In experiment, two optical fibre ring cavities are used: one is used as the Brillouin laser, providing single-mode Stokes wave as probe wave; the other is used as the Brillouin amplifier, working as slow light medium. We achieve a maximum time delay of 215ns using the ring Brillouin amplifier, five times larger than the input probe pulse width of 40ns. In the meantime, a considerable pulse broadening is observed, which agrees
well with the theoretical prediction based on linear theory.