Jds Uniphase Corporation

Christopher John Abraham

Kim Leong Tan

Nigel Copner

Thomas Ducellier

Adam D Cohen

Feliks Lapinski

Marie Josee Picard

An apparatus is described for controlling the optical path length in an optical device, e.g. an interferometer, and more importantly to maintaining the optical path length difference in an interferometer. The apparatus may include an adjustable plate optically coupled with a beamsplitter. The plate may be rotated such that its surface receives light propagated from the beamsplitter at a non-zero incident angle. In one embodiment, temperature sensitivity is addressed by ensuring that the refractive index of the plate is greater than the refractive index of the beamsplitter. In another embodiment, the apparatus includes combination spacers having a component selected in dependence upon a composition, thickness, and orientation of the adjustable plate.

Athermal interferometer

The present invention relates to an interferometer useful in the interleaving and de-interleaving of optical wavelength channels. Typically the invention comprises a beamsplitter and two resonators, e.g. GT etalons or ring resonators. The beamsplitter splits an input beam of light into a first sub-beam directed to follow a first path and a second sub-beam directed to follow a second path. The first resonator has a first effective cavity length and receives the first sub-beam. The second resonator has a second effective cavity length and receives the second sub-beam. The first path and the second path have an effective optical path difference approximately equal to one-half the first effective cavity length. In one embodiment, the front plates of the GT etalons each have a different reflectivity, and are selected to provide a desired spectral response. In another embodiment, the two resonators are slightly de-phased from one another such that the positive dispersion slope of the first resonator is aligned with the negative dispersion slope of the second resonator. Polarization-based versions of the invention are disclosed, in which a single resonator receives both sub-beams, which are orthogonally polarized. Single etalon versions of the invention are also possible, in which a beam is separated into sub-beams (i.e. reflected and transmitted beams) within a non-linear interferometer, and then re-combined outside the interferometer with the appropriate effective optical path length delay therebetween.

Low dispersion interleaver

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Mountain View, CA, United States of America

Christopher John Abraham