A wavelength tunable optical buffer based on self-pulsation in an active microring resonator

A wavelength tunable optical buffer with the ability to achieve data recovery based on self-pulsation in an active microring resonator is proposed and experimentally demonstrated. The key component in the optical buffer is the microring resonator which is implemented based on an InP-InGaAsP material system incorporating two semiconductor optical amplifiers and a phase modulator, ensuring an ultrahigh Q-factor and a tunable resonance wavelength for fast self-pulsation operating at gigahertz frequencies. An optical carrier modulated by an arbitrary pulse sequence is used to trigger the self-pulsation in the microring resonator, while its output is coupled to a fiber-optic delay line in an optoelectronic delayed feedback configuration, a recursive system for data storage. Optical buffering and data recovery at 1 Gb/s are experimentally demonstrated, which is the fastest optical buffer ever reported based on self-pulsation in a microring resonator. The proposed optical buffer can be employed to perform critical telecommunication buffer functions including writing, storage, reshaping, healing, and erasing.