Continuously tunable 1 byte delay in coupled-resonator optical waveguides

A reconfigurable coupled-resonator optical waveguide made of a few directly coupled ring resonators is employed to control the delay of data streams modulated at tens of gigabits per second. A delay of 8 bit lengths (1 optical byte) with a small pulse broadening and 1 dB/bit fractional loss is achieved by using only eight rings. The limiting role of waveguide loss and spurious backreflections is experimentally investigated. The high storage efficiency (1 bit/ring) of the device enables an easy, reliable, hitless, and relatively low-power-consuming management of the delay. A higher storage efficiency is demonstrated to be associated to an unavoidable higher pulse distortion. (C) 2008 Optical Society of America