3m Innovative Properties Company

3m Innovation Properties Company

Barry J Koch

Terry Lee Smith

Michael Albert Haase

Alexander R Mathews

Ding Wang

Yasha Yi

Barbara A DeBaun

Jun-Ying Zhang

Robert W Wilson

Xudong Fan

Chunmei Guo

Donald Kent Larson

Saujit Bandhu

YunLong Qiao

William Jeffrey Clatanoff

Brian J Gates

Chin Hua Lim

Jeremy K Larsen

Daniel J Treadwell

Phillip E Tuma

A connector is disclosed that includes a housing and first and second attachment areas located in the housing and spaced apart from each other along the mating direction of the connector. The second, but not the first, attachment area is designed to move relative to the housing. The connector further includes an optical waveguide that is permanently attached to, and under a first bending force between, the first and second attachment areas. The connector also includes a light coupling unit located in the housing for receiving light from the optical waveguide and transmitting the received light to a mating connector along a direction different than the mating direction of the connector. The mating of the connector to the mating connector causes the optical waveguide to be under a greater second bending force between the first and second attachment areas.

Optical connector

An optical system including first and second optical elements for guiding light therein. For each optical element, the propagating light enters or exits the optical element through a coupling surface of the optical element. The coupling surfaces of the optical elements face, and align with, each other so that light propagating in one of the optical elements exits the optical element through the coupling surface of the optical element and enters the other optical element through the coupling surface of the other optical element. The coupling surfaces are separated from each other and define a region therebetween. The region is filled with a coolant, the coolant substantially surrounding at least one of the first and second optical elements.

Optical cooling system

An optical communication subassembly includes one or more optoelectronic devices, one or more optical elements, and a transceiver light coupling unit. Each optical element is configured to change a divergence of the outgoing light relative to a divergence of the incoming light and is spaced apart from and optically aligned with a corresponding optoelectronic device. The transceiver light coupling unit has a mating surface configured for mating with a connector light coupling unit attached to an optical waveguide. A mating direction of the optical light coupling unit forms an angle with the mating surface of the transceiver light coupling unit such that when the connector light coupling unit mates with the transceiver light coupling unit, the angle between the mating direction of the connector light coupling unit and the mating surface of the transceiver light coupling unit causes the optical waveguide to bend.

Optical communication assemblies

Optical connectors are provided for connecting sets of optical waveguides, such as optical fiber ribbons to each other, to printed circuit boards, or to backplanes. The provided connectors utilize expanded beam optics with non-contact optical mating resulting in relaxed mechanical precision requirements. The provided connectors can have low optical loss, are easily scalable to high channel count (optical fibers per connector) and can be compatible with low insertion force blind mating.

The present invention relates to a hybrid connector. The connector comprises an insulating housing having parallel rows of first and second terminals disposed in the housing. Each first and second terminal includes a terminal portion configured to make contact with an electrically conductive trace of a circuit board; and a mating portion configured to contact a terminal of a mating connector, the mating portions of the first terminals parallel to and facing the mating portions of the second terminals. The housing defines a cavity formed therein between the mating portions of the first and second terminals, wherein the cavity defining a cavity opening at an external surface of the housing for receiving light therefrom. An optical relay portion is disposed in the cavity, wherein the optical relay portion comprises at least one of an optical transceiver, an optical lens and an optical waveguide.

Hybrid cable-to-board connector

A connector is disclosed that includes a light coupling unit designed to receive light from an input side of the light coupling unit and transmit the received light to a mating connector from an output side of the light coupling unit along a direction different than the mating direction of the connector. The light coupling unit rotates when the connector mates with the mating connector.

Optical connectors are provided for connecting sets of optical waveguides (), such as optical fiber ribbons to each other, to printed circuit boards, or to backplanes. The provided connectors () include a housing () that has an attachment area () for receiving and permanently attaching a plurality of optical waveguides. Additionally, the provided connectors include a light coupling unit () disposed in and configured to move with the housing. The provided connectors also include a second attachment area () for receiving and permanently attaching to the plurality of optical waveguides that causes each optical waveguide to be bent between the two attachment areas. The provided connectors utilize expanded beam optics with non-contact optical mating resulting in relaxed mechanical precision requirements. The provided connectors can have low optical loss, are easily scalable to high channel count (optical fibers per connector) and can be compatible with low insertion force blind mating.

A method for making a waveguide comprises (a) providing a waveguide structure comprising a substrate (), a lower cladding () layer on the substrate, and a core layer () comprising silicon nitride, amorphous silicon, or amorphous silicon-germanium alloy on the lower cladding layer; (b) patterning the core layer; and (c) annealing () the waveguide structure.

Method for making optical waveguides

A method and system are disclosed for detecting the presence of a perturbation of a microresonator including the step of exciting at least first and second resonant guided optical modes of a microresonator with a light source that is in optical communication with the microresonator. The method further includes inducing a first frequency shift in the first resonant guided optical mode and a second frequency shift in the second resonant guided optical mode, wherein the second frequency shift can be zero. Another step of the method is comparing the first frequency shift and the second frequency shift.

Integrated optical disk resonator

An optical sensing system and method are disclosed. The optical sensing system includes one or more bus waveguides. A first bus waveguide includes an input port that is in optical communication with a light source. The system further includes a microresonator optically coupled to the bus waveguides and an optical scattering center configured for alteration of a strength of optical coupling between the optical scattering center and the microresonator. In addition, the system includes a detector in optical communication one of the bus waveguides or the microresonator.

Growing community of inventors

Florence, TX, United States of America

Barry J Koch