Jds Uniphase Corporation

Lumentum Operations LLC

Twinstar Technologies Co. Ltd.

Future Wei Technologies, Inc.

Jinxi Shen

Barthelemy Fondeur

Douglas E Crafts

Philip Patrick Duggan

David J Chapman

Yimin Hua

Jyoti Kiron Bhardwaj

Eliseo R Ranalli

James F Farrell

Yevgeniy Churin

Hiroaki Yamada

Pang-Chen Sun

David R Walker

Valentine N Morozov

Wei Hou

Leonid Frenkel

Vlatko Milinkovic

Lianjun Zhang

Yu Zhang

Long Yang

Robert R McLeod

Zhong Shi

Brian Lee Heffner

Wenlin Jin

Jun Zhu

Robert Brainard

David J Dougherty

Boping Xie

W John Tomlinson

Zi-Wen Dong

Anca L Sala

David Funk

Yong Ding

Niki Liu

Kuishan Liu

Shanrui Ren

Domenico Di Mola

Na Shan

An optical fiber array unit of an optical connector includes an opposing pair of grooved plates holding at least three rows of optical fibers between them, with at least some of the optical fibers in each of the at least three rows touching two optical fibers of an adjacent one of the at least three rows. Each grooved plate of the opposing pair has an array of parallel fiber-holding grooves. In some implementations, a groove pitch of the array may be such that the cores of the optical fibers are located at nodes of a square lattice.

Optical fiber array connector device

An optical connector includes a fiber positioning assembly and a frame having two walls for supporting the fiber positioning assembly in a controlled vertical alignment relative to the frame. The fiber positioning assembly includes an optical fiber array disposed at a top surface of a support block for positioning between the walls, and a cap covering top portions of the optical fibers projecting from the block. The cap has a flat alignment surface resting upon the fiber top portions and extending laterally beyond the support block such that when the block is disposed between the walls, free portions of the alignment surface rest upon the walls to control the vertical alignment of the array. A single rail affixed to a bottom shelf of the frame, and a correspondingly dimensioned rectangular notch at the bottom of the support block, control the horizontal alignment of the array.

Optical fiber connector device and method

A tunable PLC optical filter having sequentially connected thermally tunable Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometers is described. The cascade of MZ interferometers, each having a free spectral ranges matching ITU frequency grid spacing, are tuned so as to have a common passband centered on the frequency of the signal being selected, while having at least one of the stopbands centered on any other ITU frequency. Any other optical channel that may be present at any other ITU frequency is suppressed as a result. Another MZ interferometer in series with the cascade of interferometers including an asymmetric or variable coupler, is tuned to have low transmission at the center frequency of the selected optical channel.

Flat-top tunable filter

A technique for tuning a silicon photonics (SiP) based nested (parent/child) Mach-Zehnder modulator (MZM). The technique includes a sequence of applying dither tones on individual arms of the child MZMs, observing changes in the output of the MZM, and adjusting the MZM until reaching the null points for the child MZMs and the quad point for the parent MZM.

Optical N-level quadrature amplitude modulation (NQAM) tuned by dithering associated heaters

A wavelength selective device including an arrayed waveguide grating is disclosed. The wavelength selective device includes a MEMS mirror, which couples light from an input port to an elongate aperture of an input star coupler or slab of the arrayed waveguide grating. A controller tilts the MEMS mirror in response to a sensed temperature change of the arrayed waveguide grating, thereby lessening a sensitivity of the arrayed waveguide grating to the temperature change. The MEMS mirror can also be tilted to shift wavelengths of the wavelength channels of the arrayed waveguide grating by pre-defined amounts upon receiving a corresponding remote command.

Reducing temperature drift of an arrayed waveguide grating

An optical interferometer for demodulating a differential phase shift keying optical signal includes a planar lightwave circuit and at least one free space delay line optically coupled to the planar lightwave circuit. The planar lightwave circuit has a waveguide splitter, a waveguide coupler, and a phase adjuster. In operation, the splitter splits the optical signal into equal portions, the phase adjuster adjusts the relative phase of the optical signal portions, and the free space delay line provides one-bit delay between the portions of the optical signal. The delayed signals are mixed in the waveguide coupler. The free space delay line can be made variable for adjustment of the bit delay for operation at different bit rates, and/or for optimization of the interferometer performance.

Optical interferometer

A tunable optical filter is configured to take point measurements at a few optical frequencies per frequency channel of a DWDM optical network. The measurement frequencies are shifted by pre-determined amounts relative to the optical frequency channel being characterized. Since the spectral shape of the tunable optical filter is known, the center optical frequency, the modulation bandwidth, and the total optical power of the channel can be obtained from as few as three optical measurements. The center optical frequency and the total optical power can be continuously monitored by providing a tunable filter stage coupled to an interleaver stage, and computing a ratio and a weighted sum the optical signals at the two outputs of the interleaver stage.

Characterizing a frequency channel in an optical network

A tunable PLC optical filter having sequentially connected thermally tunable Mach-Zehnder (MZ) interferometers is described. The MZ interferometers, having free spectral ranges matching ITU frequency grid spacing, are tuned so as to have a common passband centered on the frequency of the signal being selected, while having at least one of the stopbands centered on any other ITU frequency. Any other optical channel that may be present at any other ITU frequency is suppressed as a result. The PLC chip, including a zero-dispersion lattice-filter interleaver stage, a switchable fine-resolution stage and, or a retroreflector for double passing the filter, is packaged into a hot-pluggable XFP transceiver package. A compensation heater is used to keep constant the amount of heat applied to the PLC chip inside the XFP package, so as to lessen temperature variations upon tuning of the PLC optical filter.

Tunable optical filter

An optical device for rearranging wavelength channels in an optical network is disclosed. The optical device has a wavelength selective coupler having one input port and a plurality of output ports coupled to a plurality of input ports of an optical grating demultiplexor such as an arrayed waveguide grating. The wavelength channels in each of the input ports are dispersed by the demultiplexor and are directed to a plurality of output ports of the optical grating demultiplexor. As a result, at least one wavelength channel at each of the input ports of the optical grating demultiplexor is coupled into a common output port. The optical device is useful in passive optical networks wherein a same demultiplexor is used for simultaneous multiplexing and demultiplexing of wavelength channels.

Optical device for rearranging wavelength channels

A scanning optical spectrometer with a detector array is disclosed, in which position of focused spot of light at the input of a dispersive element such as arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) with a slab input, is scanned using a micro-electro-mechanical (MEMS) tiltable micromirror so as to make the dispersed spectrum of light scan over the detector array coupled to the AWG. Sub-spectra recorded using individual detectors are concatenated by a processor unit to obtain the spectrum of input light.

Scanning spectrometer with multiple photodetectors

A method and an apparatus for calibrating a MEMS actuator of a hybrid MEMS-PLC optical switch or router is described. Two calibrating waveguides, embedded monolithically adjacent to the waveguides that provide the PLC output functions, are used for referencing a MEMS mirror tilt angle by maximizing optical coupling of light, reflected off the MEMS mirror, into one or each of the two calibrating waveguides. The input light is provided by either a waveguide carrying a live optical signal, or by a special input waveguide, coupled to an LED, for providing a calibrating light. Two emitting waveguides, embedded monolithically adjacent to the waveguides that provide the PLC input functions, can be used.

Method and apparatus for referencing a MEMS device

The coherent interference effect between two beam is used with one light beam delayed by a controllably variable time delay with respect to another analogous beam to obtain a convolutional profile of the oscillatory component of the interference amplitude as a function of the time delay, having a peak value representing the performance clearance between a zero-bit and a one-bit. The convolutional profile is represented by a diamond diagram (DD) of the interference amplitude, within the coherence length. The peak value and the size of DD openings are used for characterizing pulsed optical signals by determining at least one of a predefined set of signal parameters, including signal degradation, optical chromatic dispersion, signal coherence length, type of signal modulation, and signal-to-noise ratio. The two-beam interference effect is optionally provided by a free-space Mach Zehnder interferometer, an integrated Mach Zehnder interferometer, a Michelson interferometer, or combinations thereof.

Apparatus and method for characterizing pulsed optical signals

An optical performance monitor for accurate monitoring of the OSNR of a WDM optical signal is provided wherein a demultiplexing arrayed waveguide grating (AWG) having a plurality of Vernier input ports is disposed between an optical switch and a photodiode array coupled to the output ports of the AWG. In operation, the optical switch sequentially provides the input optical signal into each of the Vernier ports, and signals detected by photodiodes are stored in a memory unit. The apparatus is capable of monitoring the OSNR of the WDM signal with a frequency step which is M times smaller than a frequency spacing between the AWG transmission bands, while enabling the OSNR monitoring in an enhanced dynamic range by providing accurate noise sampling.

Optical performance monitor

A demultiplexer/multiplexer is disclosed wherein an arrayed waveguide grating having a reflector at an end includes selectable signal path blockers. The arrayed waveguide device has a common input/output port for launching radiation in the form of an input signal having n wavelengths therein and for receiving back via the reflector at the input/output port a selected channel of the input signal. In operation a multiplexed signal have n channels is launched therein and a selected channel is output for analysis or further processing.

Dynamic optical demultiplexer/multiplexer formed within a PLC

Growing community of inventors

San Ramon, CA, United States of America

Jinxi Shen