Northrop Grumman Systems Corporation

Arthur B O'Connor

Donald Glen Heflinger

James M Zamel

Daniel W Lam

An optical communications terminal including a polarizing element responsive to a first linearly polarized optical beam and rotating the first linearly polarized optical beam in a first linear direction, a beam separator responsive to and passing the first linearly polarized optical beam, and a circular polarizing element responsive to the first linearly polarized optical beam from the beam separator and circularly polarizing the first linearly polarized optical beam for transmission, where the circular polarizing element is switchable between two orthogonal switching states. The terminal receives a circularly polarized optical beam from another terminal and linearly polarizes the circularly polarized optical beam from the other terminal in a second linear direction that is orthogonal to the first linear direction and the beam separator directs the circularly polarized optical beam from the other terminal in a direction away from the polarizing element.

Optical communications terminal

An optical communications system including two communications terminals in communication with each other using optical signals having the same wavelength. Both terminals include a half-wave plate polarizer for rotating linearly polarized optical signals and a quarter-wave plate polarizer for circularly polarizing the optical signals. The quarter-wave plate polarizers are oriented 90&#xb0; relative to each other so that circularly polarized optical signals sent from one terminal to the other terminal are linearly polarized 90&#xb0; relative to a transmission polarization orientation to be separable from the transmitted optical signals by a beam splitter.

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Tucson, AZ, United States of America

Arthur B O'Connor