Ultralong continuously tunable parametric delays via a cascading discrete stage

We report experimental demonstration of an all-optical continuously tunable delay line based on parametric mixing with a total delay range of 7.34 mus. The bit-error rate performance of the delay line was characterized for a 10-Gb/s NRZ data channel. This result is enabled by cascading a discrete delay line that consists of 16 wavelength-dependent delays and a continuously tunable delay stage. Four wavelength conversion stages based on four-wave mixing in silicon waveguides were performed in order to achieve wavelength-preserving operation. The wavelength-optimized optical phase conjugation scheme employed in the delay line is capable of minimizing the residual dispersion for the entire tuning range.