Hughes Aircraft Company

Huan W Yen

Richard C Lind

Jar Jar Lee

Gregory L Tangonan

Willie W Ng

Irwin L Newberg

Ronald Regis Stephens

Michael Wechsberg

Andrew A Walston

Richard R Craig

Optoelectronic switching apparatus employing optoelectronic switching devices interconnected by optical media having different delay lengths and an multiport optical coupler. The optoelectronic switching apparatus provides for a multibit true-time-delay beamsteerer for beamsteering phased array antennas. The present invention combines two types of optoelectronic devices, lasers and photodiode switches, using an interconnected passive optical network comprising the optical fibers and the optical coupler. The switches, and input and output signal networks coupled to the respective switches, are controlled using a control signal generator. Using this scheme, any input can be independently selected and a signal can be routed to any output. Furthermore, the product of the total number of different interconnect paths (N.times.M) is provided which provides a greater number of delay lengths than is provided by using only one type of switch (i.e. laser (N) or photodiode (M)) alone. The present invention also provides for improved insertion loss while increasing the number of delay paths.

Optoelectronic multibit beamsteering switching apparatus

A four-pass conjugate optical amplifier system and method are disclosed in which a linear polarized optical beam is directed by various optical elements through four passes of a power amplifier, preferably a diode laser structure. The beam is phase conjugated at the optical midpoint between the second and third amplifying passes, and is controlled by the optical elements so that its polarization is substantially the same during the first and second passes, and again substantially the same during the third and fourth amplifying passes. This is accomplished by a reflective coating on the back facet of the diode laser structure, with a non-reciprocal polarization rotation element located in the beam path between the phase conjugate mirror and power amplifier. For considerably enhanced power amplification, the beam may be divided into an array of subbeams, which are individually amplified by four passes through respective power amplifiers. The subbeams are processed by the optical system so that they recombine into a single coherent output beam after full amplification.

Four-pass phase conjugate optical amplifier system and method

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Westlake, CA, United States of America

Huan W Yen