Lucent Technologies Inc.

Sunjoule Materials, Inc.

Hernando Garcia

Daniel Charles Kilper

Chunhui Xu

Wayne Harvey Knox

Howard Roy Stuart

Mihaela Dinu

Abhinav Malasi

Ramakrishnan Kalyanaraman

Jeffrey Matthew Roth

Veena Gopal Krishnan

Gerd Duscher

A hollow photovoltaic fiber. The hollow photovoltaic fiber includes semiconductor formed on the inner surface of a hollow tube or on a flexible substrate subsequently formed into a hollow tube. The hollow photovoltaic fiber is suitable a variety of semiconductor devices, including solar cells. Light entering the hollow photovoltaic fiber deposits energy in the semiconductor as it travel through the tube. The hollow photovoltaic fiber exhibits improved energy conversion efficiency over planar thin film solar cells due to the large semiconductor surface area and longer light travel path provided by the tube. Embodiments of the hollow photovoltaic fiber are lightweight and flexible allowing the creation of non-planar solar cells and the applications for solar cells to extend into such areas as the manufacture of photovoltaic textiles or photovoltaic non-woven fabrics.

Hollow photovoltaic fiber

An optical performance monitor (OPM), e.g., for use in an optical network. The OPM may be configured to characterize one or more impairments in an optical signal modulated with data. The OPM has an optical autocorrelator configured to sample the autocorrelation function of the optical signal, e.g., using two-photon absorption. Autocorrelation points at various bit delays independently or in combination with average optical power may be used to detect and/or quantify one or more of the following: loss of data modulation, signal contrast, pulse broadening, peak power fluctuations, timing jitter, and deviations from the pseudo-random character of data. In addition, the OPM may be configured to perform Fourier transformation based on the autocorrelation points to obtain corresponding spectral components. The spectral components may be used to detect and/or quantify one or more of chromatic dispersion, polarization mode dispersion, and misalignment of a pulse carver and data modulator. The OPM may be further configured to generate feedback, e.g., to network operators to improve network performance.

Performance monitoring in an optical communication system

A photomultiplier module (PMT), preferably a PMT with a gallium arsenide (GaAs) photocathode, is used as a N-photon detector (N is an integer &#x2267;2). The PMT detects the N-photon absorption rate of an optical signal having a wavelength range extending from 1.0 &#x3bc;m to an upper wavelength region that increases as the number of photons simultaneously absorbed by the PMT increases beyond two. The N-photon absorption rate is used by a signal compensation apparatus to reduce impairments which affect the rate, such as group velocity dispersion and/or polarization mode dispersion, in a received optical pulse communication signal. The N-photon absorption rate can also be used to determine the optical signal-to-noise ratio of a received optical pulse communication signal, and/or to synchronize a second optical pulse signal with the first optical signal.

Dynamic measurement of and compensation for impairments to optical data communication pulses

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Freehold, NJ, United States of America

Hernando Garcia