Jds Uniphase Corporation

Lumentum Operations LLC

Corning Incorporated

Coring Incorporated

Barthelemy Fondeur

Jinxi Shen

Douglas E Crafts

Anca L Sala

Eliseo R Ranalli

Hiroaki Yamada

Robert Brainard

Yimin Hua

Jyoti Kiron Bhardwaj

James F Farrell

David J Dougherty

Sanjay M Thekdi

Philip Patrick Duggan

Anantharaman Vaidyanathan

David J Chapman

Pang-Chen Sun

David R Walker

Vlatko Milinkovic

Leonid Frenkel

Yu Zhang

Wei Li

Mark Missey

Peter Gerard Wigley

Robert R McLeod

Bardia Pezeshki

Wenlin Jin

Boping Xie

Zi-Wen Dong

Zhaoming Li

Jiamin Zheng

Thomas Nguyen

Duncan Harwood

David K Nakamoto

David Funk

Yong Ding

Yujian Bao

Tom Truong

Niki Liu

Ian Hutagalung

Tedros Tsegaye

Craig D Liddle

Dilu He

Kejia Li

Brad Levin

Domenico Di Mola

In some implementations, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (MZI) includes a delay line arm formed in a chip and a mirrored facet formed in the chip. The delay line arm may be configured to propagate light to the mirrored facet. The mirrored facet may be configured to reflect, to the delay line arm, a percentage of the light propagated to the mirrored facet by the delay line arm.

Mach-Zehnder interferometer with mirrored facet

An optical device includes a waveguide device and a fiber stub. The fiber stub at least partially contains a first optical fiber and is directly attached to the waveguide device by an adhesive. The first optical fiber is to be coupled to a second optical fiber included in an optical connector when the optical connector is inserted into a receptacle of the optical device. The fiber stub is to couple the first optical fiber to at least one of the waveguide device or an optical waveguide included in the waveguide device.

Coupling between a waveguide device and fiber stub

According to some possible implementations, an optical device may include a plurality of photodiodes, wherein alignment of the plurality of photodiodes with a fixed separation to a plurality of multi-mode waveguides disposed on an optical waveguide chip and with the same fixed separation is optimized by alignment of at least one of the plurality of photodiodes to at least one single-mode waveguide and translation of the optical waveguide chip relative to the plurality of photodiodes by a fixed offset of the at least one single-mode waveguide relative to the plurality of multi-mode waveguides.

Multiple waveguide alignment

A spot size converter may include a tapered periodic segmented waveguide (PSW). The tapered PSW may include a plurality of waveguide segments defined by a plurality of gaps between the plurality of waveguide segments. The plurality of gaps may be at one or more angles that are not substantially parallel to a direction of a width of the tapered PSW. The direction of the width of the tapered PSW may be substantially perpendicular to a direction in which light passes through the tapered PSW.

Angled periodic segmented waveguide for spot size conversion with reduced return loss

A tunable PLC optical filter having sequentially connected thermally tunable Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometers is described. The cascade of MZ interferometers, each having a free spectral ranges matching ITU frequency grid spacing, are tuned so as to have a common passband centered on the frequency of the signal being selected, while having at least one of the stopbands centered on any other ITU frequency. Any other optical channel that may be present at any other ITU frequency is suppressed as a result. Another MZ interferometer in series with the cascade of interferometers including an asymmetric or variable coupler, is tuned to have low transmission at the center frequency of the selected optical channel.

Flat-top tunable filter

New architectures for multicast switches, and other optical switches and splitters, that have substantially reduced insertion loss, crosstalk and better overall optical performance in comparison to existing optical switches and splitters. Optimized waveguide mesh layouts are used to substantially reduce the number of waveguide crossings, which reduces insertion loss. The reduction in the number of crossings also reduces the complexity of the mesh and provides better crossing angles to reduce crosstalk and other issues. Instead of crossing all of the waveguides connected between splitter outputs and switch inputs, the waveguides are crossed in sets of waveguides.

Compact multicast switches, MxN switches and MxN splitters

A wavelength selective device including an arrayed waveguide grating is disclosed. The wavelength selective device includes a MEMS mirror, which couples light from an input port to an elongate aperture of an input star coupler or slab of the arrayed waveguide grating. A controller tilts the MEMS mirror in response to a sensed temperature change of the arrayed waveguide grating, thereby lessening a sensitivity of the arrayed waveguide grating to the temperature change. The MEMS mirror can also be tilted to shift wavelengths of the wavelength channels of the arrayed waveguide grating by pre-defined amounts upon receiving a corresponding remote command.

Reducing temperature drift of an arrayed waveguide grating

A tunable optical filter is configured to take point measurements at a few optical frequencies per frequency channel of a DWDM optical network. The measurement frequencies are shifted by pre-determined amounts relative to the optical frequency channel being characterized. Since the spectral shape of the tunable optical filter is known, the center optical frequency, the modulation bandwidth, and the total optical power of the channel can be obtained from as few as three optical measurements. The center optical frequency and the total optical power can be continuously monitored by providing a tunable filter stage coupled to an interleaver stage, and computing a ratio and a weighted sum the optical signals at the two outputs of the interleaver stage.

Characterizing a frequency channel in an optical network

A tunable PLC optical filter having sequentially connected thermally tunable Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometers is described. The MZ interferometers, having free spectral ranges matching ITU frequency grid spacing, are tuned so as to have a common passband centered on the frequency of the signal being selected, while having at least one of the stopbands centered on any other ITU frequency. Any other optical channel that may be present at any other ITU frequency is suppressed as a result. The PLC chip, including a zero-dispersion lattice-filter interleaver stage, a switchable fine-resolution stage and, or a retroreflector for double passing the filter, is packaged into a hot-pluggable XFP transceiver package. A compensation heater is used to keep constant the amount of heat applied to the PLC chip inside the XFP package, so as to lessen temperature variations upon tuning of the PLC optical filter.

Tunable optical filter

An optical device for rearranging wavelength channels in an optical network is disclosed. The optical device has a wavelength selective coupler having one input port and a plurality of output ports coupled to a plurality of input ports of an optical grating demultiplexor such as an arrayed waveguide grating. The wavelength channels in each of the input ports are dispersed by the demultiplexor and are directed to a plurality of output ports of the optical grating demultiplexor. As a result, at least one wavelength channel at each of the input ports of the optical grating demultiplexor is coupled into a common output port. The optical device is useful in passive optical networks wherein a same demultiplexor is used for simultaneous multiplexing and demultiplexing of wavelength channels.

Optical device for rearranging wavelength channels

A scanning optical spectrometer with a detector array is disclosed, in which position of focused spot of light at the input of a dispersive element such as arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) with a slab input, is scanned using a micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) tiltable micromirror so as to make the dispersed spectrum of light scan over the detector array coupled to the AWG. Sub-spectra recorded using individual detectors are concatenated by a processor unit to obtain the spectrum of input light.

Scanning spectrometer with multiple photodetectors

The invention relates to an asymmetric Mach Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) having a reduced drive voltage, coupled to a compact low-loss arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) to provide a broader passband with low ripple. The integrated device has a compact stackable design for improved manufacturing yield. Inputs and outputs of the device are disposed in alignment on opposite sides of a silicon chip with the MZI having an opposite curvature to the AWG. To achieve this alignment, waveguide arms of the MZI are crossed without coupling between them before the optical signal is combined and coupled into the AWG.

Asymmetric Mach-Zehnder interferometer having a reduced drive voltage coupled to a compact low-loss arrayed waveguide grating

The invention relates to phase matched optical gratings for performing signal multiplexing and demultiplexing in optical communications networks. In prior art gratings there is a phase linearity error between the grating line and the outputs on the focal line, comparing the center output to the surrounding outputs. This corresponds to a relative phase difference between each output which limits the passband. In the case of the AWG this degradation comes primarily from field aberrations in the output star coupler. The present invention has found that if the grating line of the optical grating is disposed on a ellipse instead of a circular arc, while the focal line of outputs defines a substantially circular arc, an optimum can be found where the phase linearity error is substantially eliminated, and all outputs have substantially the same phase. As a result, this creates substantially uniform passbands across the WDM spectrum.

Phase matched optical grating

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Barthelemy Fondeur