Experimental demonstration of a noise-tunable delay line with applications to phase synchronization

Abstract

In this paper we propose and demonstrate a discrete circuit capable of generating arbitrary time delays dependent on noise, either added externally or already present in the signal of interest due to a finite signal-to-noise ratio. We then go on to demonstrate an application to phase locking of signals by means of a standard Phase-Locked Loop (PLL) design, where the usual Voltage-Controlled Oscillator (VCO) is replaced by the noise-tunable delay line.