Advanced Detection of Information in Optical Pulses with Negative Group Velocity

TL;DR

This paper experimentally demonstrates that information encoded in optical pulses can be detected earlier than expected due to anomalous dispersion, with the speed-up influenced by detector efficiency and losses, challenging traditional notions of signal velocity.

Contribution

It introduces a method to encode information in the spatial degree of freedom of optical pulses, enabling detection speed-up in anomalous dispersion regions considering realistic detector imperfections.

Findings

Signal detection can be advanced using anomalous dispersion and non-ideal detectors.

Speed-up depends on detector efficiency and system losses, not just pulse group velocity.

Perfect detectors would eliminate the apparent speed-up, aligning information speed with light in vacuum.

Abstract

In this letter we experimentally demonstrate that the signal velocity, defined as the earliest time when a signal is detected above the realistic noise floor, may be altered by a region of anomalous dispersion. We encode information in the spatial degree of freedom of an optical pulse so that the imprinted information is not limited by the frequency bandwidth of the region of anomalous dispersion. We then show that the combination of superluminal pulse propagation and realistic detectors with non-ideal quantum efficiency leads to a speed-up of the earliest experimentally obtainable arrival time of the transmitted signal even with the overall pulse experiencing unity gain. This speed-up is reliant upon non-ideal detectors and losses, as perfect detection efficiency would result in the speed of information being equal to the speed of light in vacuum, regardless of the group velocity of the optical pulses.