Information throughput of photorefractive spatial solitons in the telecommunication range

Abstract

Photorefractive spatial solitons are attractive elements because they can be used as controllable optical interconnectors for all-optical devices. To our knowledge, until now their properties were investigated in terms of energy transportation. We suggest considering photorefractive spatial solitons as optically induced information channels. The experimental technique to measure the information throughput of photorefractive spatial solitons in accordance with Shannon's definition was developed and demonstrated by us. We experimentally demonstrated that in the wavelength range of $1520–1630\mathrm{nm}$ it can be estimated as large as $\approx 90\mathrm{Tbits}/\text{s}$. We also experimentally demonstrate a measurement of the group-velocity dispersion and show the limitation of the pulse transfer rate of the induced waveguides to $\approx 6.2\mathrm{THz}$.

© 2007 Optical Society of America

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