Exfo Electro-optical Engineering, Inc.

Martin Lamonde

Gang He

Gregory Walter Schinn

Daniel Gari&eacute;py

A uniform optical attenuation system for high power detection comprises a detector unit (), a plurality of diffusing elements () for receiving and diffusing input light and an apertured plate () for limiting light received by the detection unit to a portion only of the light diffused by the diffusing arrangement. The plurality of diffusing elements comprise a first diffusing element () for receiving and diffusing an input light beam to provide a distributed light source for a subsequent one of the diffusing elements, and final one of the diffusing elements which directs diffused light towards the detection unit. The light detected by the detection unit () is substantially independent of variations in numerical aperture of the input light. Each diffusing element may be a diffusing surface, such as a ground glass or opal diffuser, which renders the system substantially independent of variations in optical properties due to heating effects caused by the high energy light.

Optical attentuator system

A polarization independent optical spectrum analyzer comprises an inherently polarization sensitive angle-tuned filter element and polarization-maintaining multi-pass optics for directing a light beam to and fro through the tunable filter element while maintaining its linear state of polarization. The optical spectrum analyzer comprises such a tunable optical filter in combination with a polarization control unit for decomposing a light beam for analysis into first and second beams having mutually orthogonal states of polarization (SOPs) and then adjusting one or both SOPs so that they are parallel to each other and to one of the principal axes of the angle-tuned filter which selects different wavelengths of the first and second light beams. The first and second light beams are passed through the filter repeatedly by multi-pass polarization-maintaining optics.

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Martin Lamonde