Achromatic optical phase shifter–modulator

Abstract

We propose and demonstrate, theoretically and experimentally, a novel achromatic optical phase shifter-modulator based on a frequency-domain optical delay line configured to maintain zero group delay as variable phase delay is generated by means of tilting a mirror. Compared with previously reported phase shifter-modulators, e.g., based on the Pancharatnam (geometric) phase, our device is high speed and polarization insensitive and produces a large, bounded phase delay that, uniquely, is one-to-one mapped to a measurable parameter, the tilt angle.