Effect of ion concentration on slow light propagation in highly doped erbium fibers

The effect of ion density on slow light propagation enabled by coherent population oscillations has been experimentally investigated for highly doped erbium fibers at room temperature. We found that fractional delay increases with ion density. A saturation effect in the fractional delay has been observed for doping levels above similar to 3150 ppm. Ultra-high ion concentration can simultaneously increase the fractional delay and the bandwidth of the signals. We have studied the propagation of Gaussian pulses along the fibers obtaining fractional delays up to 0.7 for the highest doping levels used. It is shown that pulse power can be used as a control parameter to reduce distortion at different pulse bandwidths. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.