Bell Communications Research, Inc.

Eugene W Chase

Jonathan P Heritage

Robert N Thurston

Peter J Delfyett, Jr

Michael P Dugan

Burton A Unger

Francis DeRosa

An environmental testing chamber (10) and thermal cycling method in which, in addition to stressing the device (20) under test with electrical bias (32), elevated temperature (12), pressure (16), and humidity (18) while the device is being monitored (32), a thermoelectric heat pump (26) quickly cycles the temperature of the device by pumping heat from the heat sink (22) mounting the device to another larger heat sink (24).

Rapid temperature cycling for accelerated stress testing

For use, e.g., in the compensation of frequency dispersion in the course of transmission of an optical signal, a pulse-shaping device is provided with a suitably shaped nonplanar mirror (16). When spatially spread-out frequency components--produced, e.g., by a grating (14)--are reflected from such mirror, a frequency-dependent phase shift is introduced; for example, such phase shift may be a third-order function of frequency. Upon recombination of frequencies, a shaped pulse is obtained. Furthermore, third-order compensation can be used to compress amplified light pulses, e.g. as produced by a semiconductor gain medium (80, 81).

Optical pulse-shaping device and method, and optical communications

Growing community of inventors

Middletown, NJ, United States of America

Eugene W Chase