Jds Fitel Inc.

Other

Jds Uniphase Corporation

Northern Telecom Limited

Fitel Inc.

Gary S Duck

Yihao Cheng

Neil Teitelbaum

Paul Colbourne

Mark Farries

Koichi Abe

Stephen J Mihailov

Bruce Nyman

Joseph W Ip

Y Calvin Si

Donald R Zimmerman

Carey M Garrett

William J Sinclair

Frederick D King

Vincent Delisle

Donald W Dahringer

Jozef Straus

Timothy P Cutts

Jinghui Li

David Henry Cushing

Masamichi Yataki

Norbert Fabricius

Jan Ingenhoff

Jonathan Liberty

Calvin Si

Vasile Prunes

A laser system is disclosed wherein a tunable laser signal has encoded within it information related to its wavelength at any instant in time. This encoding in one example is performed by modulating the signal to contain its wavelength information. This is particularly useful in a distributed system for testing optical components, wherein at a test site, the test station must determine the wavelength of light at which a component was tested.

Apparatus and method for generation of optical signals

A package for an optical device comprising two mating sections, each section including a rigid outer protective shell and a resilient inner body. The package is easily clamped together using snap clips, which are integral with the rigid outer protective shells. Preferably, strain relief is provided integrated on each end of the resilient bodies.

Optical device package

An optical system for coupling light from a monolithic waveguide chip from one optical path to another on different layers of the chip or into or out of the chip along an edge thereof by coupling a GRIN lens to the edge. Coupling a GRIN lens having a reflective end allows light to be launched out of and back into the waveguide chip. Alternatively a GRIN lens having a plurality of fibers coupled thereto can be used to couple signals carried by the fibers into the waveguide chip.

Coupling of light into a monolithic waveguide device

The present invention relates to an in-line optical amplifier that can be coupled to optical fiber, wherein the amplifying medium has a substantially larger mode field than the optical fiber to which it is coupled. The present invention has realized a design to utilize a very high power pump launching a multimoded signal having approximately 1 W of pump power into a block of erbium doped glass having a mode field diameter orders of magnitude larger than the mode field diameter of erbium doped fiber. This invention provides a relatively inexpensive optical amplifier that is compatible for use in an optical fiber telecommunications system or for other uses. Advantageously, this invention provides a device that does not require unwieldy lengths of erbium doped fiber to form an amplifier. By using a block of glass having a rare earth therein, packaging, temperature stabilizing and temperature tuning of the amplifier also become practicable. Furthermore, a cylindrical block of glass having planar ends, lends itself to applying coatings or filters thereto, thereby forming selective filters at ends of the erbium doped block to allow the pump light in, and the signal light in at opposite ends, while preventing light at the pump wavelength to propagate out with the amplified signal.

Low cost amplifier using bulk optics

An optical filter is disclosed having a pair of GRIN lenses disposed back to back, and having parallel end faces orthogonal to coaxial optical axes. Optical fiber tubes having optical fibers therein are disposed adjacent the GRIN lenses and have their inwardly facing end faces slant polished to lessen the effects of unwanted back reflections. This arrangement wherein optical axes of the optical fiber tubes are not parallel to the optical axes of the GRIN lenses is novel and inventive.

Optical coupling system

1. A lensed sleeve has a holder having at least two substantially parallel rows of optical fibers which are offset from one another by about 2 &mgr;m or more. Generally these defective offset sleeves have to be discarded as their offset inhibits proper coupling of light, however in accordance with this invention a lens is disposed to receive light from at least optical fibers within one of the at least two rows of optical fibers. By using symmetry about the lens, light can be efficiently coupled between particular fibre ends on the offset rows. Advantageously, this invention provides a use for otherwise useless sleeves which did not meet intended tolerances.

Lensed sleeve

A useful device is provided for coupling or splitting optical signals from one port to another. The symmetry of a lens is utilized in a manner whereby two linear arrays of optical ports are disposed adjacent the optical axis of the lens equidistant from the optical axis of the lens. An at least partially reflecting optical element is disposed at a collimating end of the lens. Signals launched into one array of ports reflects back to the second array of ports at the same end. In another embodiment of the invention utilizing these two linear arrays of waveguides, two matched lenses having an element disposed between are used as a coupler/splitter. In this arrangement ports are positioned on opposite sides of the optical axis equidistant from it.

Multi-port fiber optical device

A system and method are disclosed for demulitplexing closely spaced channels carrying optically encoded data. A composite optical signal having data channels corresponding to center wavelengths .lambda.1, .lambda.2, .lambda.3, .lambda.4, . . . .lambda.n are separated into two composite optical signals of first of which comprises data channels corresponding to center wavelengths .lambda.1, .lambda.3, . . . .lambda.n and a second which comprises data channels corresponding to center wavelengths .lambda.2, .lambda.4, . . . .lambda.n-1, wherein adjacent channels center wavelengths are separated from one another by a distance 'd'. A periodic multi-cavity Fabry-Perot etalon having a free spectral range of '2d' is coupled to a circulator for launching an input beam. The first of the two composite optical signals carrying channels 1, 3, . . . n is reflected from the input port of the etalon and the second of the of the two optical signals carrying channels 2, 4, . . . n-1 is transmitted through the etalon. After the two signals are separated, further separation can be achieved by using conventional dichroic filters.

Method and circuit for demultiplexing an optical signal

A method and circuit is provided for more efficiently coupling light between two optical waveguides such as optical fibres. When the two waveguides are coupled to spaced apart collimating lenses such as GRIN lenses, the beam propagating between the spaced part lenses may be shifted. In this instance light can more efficiently be coupled out of the output optical fibre if it is angled with respect to the optical axis of the GRIN lens to which it is coupled. This invention provides an output fibre that is non-parallel with the optical axis of the lens it is coupled thereto.

Method and device for optical coupling

An optical multiplexing/demultiplexing device has a plurality of optical ports along a cascading optical path with wavelength-specific filters disposed at the ports. The filters are selected to form groups of at least two virtually identical filters. At least one 'add' connection is provided for admitting a selected band into the optical path, the connection being disposed at a second or consecutive (third, fourth etc . . . ) filter of the same wavelength as the band being added. The device uses a single medium for processing optical signals, e.g. a single polygonal optical block or air.

Optical multiplexing/demultiplexing device

A method and apparatus of generating a test signal for broadcast to a plurality of locations for testing optical devices is disclosed. A tunable laser sweeps from a lower wavelength to a higher upper wavelength providing a test station with a variable input signal. A timing signal generated from the variable input signal is provided to the test station to determine the frequency of the variable input signal so that tests may be performed at several known wavelengths. Amplification is added to the system to provide sufficient power to the variable input signal and timing signal both split by a splitter to be provided to multiple test stations simultaneously.

Apparatus for testing an optical component

An optical system is provided for coupling light from one optical waveguide to another. By offsetting the parallel optical axes of two GRIN lenses by a minimum of 50 .mu.m there is a significant reduction in unwanted effects from reflections. Furthermore etalon effects present in many optical coupling systems having parallel inwardly facing end-faces are reduced. The invention obviates the costly solution of for slanting one of the inwardly end-faces of the lens.

Method and system for reducing unwanted effects of back reflections

An optical demultiplexor utilizes a single optical interference filter disposed between an input end and an output end of the device. The filter is preferably housed within a cavity in a glass block having an upstanding input end, endwall. The optical filter is a wavelength selective means having a wavelength characteristic dependent upon an angle of incidence. The device has a plurality of reflective surfaces disposed at the input end for reflecting light reflected from the filter, back to the filter at different predetermined angles. Each different predetermined incident angle allows a different predetermined wavelength of light to pass through the filter to an output end being spatially separated from other predetermined wavelengths that pass through the filter. The reflective surfaces are preferably formed in the upstanding endwall of the glass block. Sixteen channels can be separated by this demultiplexor.

Optical demultiplexor

An optical device is provided having an input and an output terminal spaced equidistant from an optical axis of a graded index lens. An at least partially reflective surface is disposed spaced but adjacent from another end face of the graded index lens. The optical path length from the input or output terminal to a first end face of the lens is equal to the optical path length from the other end face of the lens to the at least partially reflective surface. The graded index lens has a length that collimates light launched from the input terminal to the at least partially reflective surface. Moving the input an output terminals toward or away from one another changes the angle at which light exits the other end face of the graded index lens, and thus changes the angle at which light is incident upon the at least partially reflecting surface. Conveniently, if the at least partially reflecting surface is a WDM interference filter, tunability of the filter is achieved by moving the input an output terminals toward or away from one another.

Growing community of inventors

Nepean, Canada

Gary S Duck