Lucent Technologies Inc.

Bell Telephone Laboratories

At&t Bell Laboratories

Stephen Clement Mettler

Calvin M Miller

Raymond B Kummer

Carl Raymond Taylor

Ian A White

Willard C White

George Edwin Mock

Bruce V Darden

Paul F Gagen

Dean R Frey

Jane F Kuhl

Bruce B Boehlke

Charles H DuVall

John L Baden

Michael J Buckler

Disclosed is a system and method for converting modes in an optical network. Briefly described, the system comprises an optical pathway extending from an exit face of a single-mode waveguide to an entrance face of a multimode waveguide. A first ball lens and second ball lens are located in the optical pathway, with an optical link gap located the first and second ball lenses.

Mode converter and method

The apparatus of this invention includes a macrobend/microbend unit which imposes first and second macrobends, and microbends between the first and second macrobends, on an optical fiber under analysis. If light is travelling in one direction on the optical fiber, the bending of the optical fiber is such that some light will escape from the core of the optical fiber at the first macrobend. A first photodetector is arranged to receive light emitted from the first macrobend, and generates a signal indicative of whether light is present at the first macrobend. If light is travelling in the optical fiber in the other direction, the second macrobend causes some light to be emitted. A second photodetector arranged to receive light from the second macrobend, generates a signal indicative of whether light is present at the second macrobend. The apparatus includes a display, generated based on the signals from the photodetectors, indicating the optical fiber status including information such as whether light is travelling in the optical fiber in one direction or the other, whether the optical fiber is live or dead, and/or whether the light emitted from the optical fiber includes a tone signal of fixed frequency. For example, the apparatus can be used to aid a repair technician in quickly determining the optical fibers in need of repair in a damaged optical fiber cable containing many optical fibers. The invention also includes a related method.

Optical fiber status analyzer and related methods

The present invention is a device which may be used to detect the presence of light in a single mode optical fiber while the optical fiber is in use, or to introduce light into an optical fiber. The device includes an identifier chip, and an associated, complementary shaped plate, each of which employ both microbending and macrobending portions. The chip and the plate are each formed of a single piece of material, although only the chip must be formed of an optically transmissive material. In use the chip is urged toward the plate with an optical fiber therebetween. Deformation of the fiber caused by the stress exerted by the chip and the plate will cause detectable light to be emitted through the chip if the fiber is live.

Optical components for live-fiber identifier and coupler

An optical integrated circuit (OIC) 10 and an optical fiber array 20 are joined using index matching material, and mounted on a planar bridging structure 30 to form a device which can be readily connected to other devices using conventional optical connectors. The OIC and the fiber array comprise a silicon substrates 100, 200 having bottom surfaces that include reference areas 14, 24, and top sides that include a number of optical paths 16, 50. These paths are positioned above each reference area by an exact distance. Additionally, the bottom sides of the OIC and the fiber array include alignment features 13, 23 which are etched into their substrates and bear a predetermined horizontal relation to the optical paths. The planar bridging structure also includes a reference surface 34 that interfaces the reference surfaces of the OIC and the fiber array to assure that the optical paths are in vertical alignment. The resulting device achieves excellent alignment (i.e., less than 0.1 dB loss on average), without active alignment, when the fibers in the fiber array are carefully selected to have minimum eccentricity and similar diameters. The overall device is structurally completed by placing a bridging substrate 400 on the top surfaces of the OIC and the fiber array and then attaching a pair of spring clips 60 to support them as a unitary structure.

Optical integrated circuit having passively aligned fibers and method

In order to recoat bared end portions (32--32) of optical fibers (34--34) which have been spliced together, the spliced portions of the fibers and portions adjacent thereto are positioned in a groove (51) of a base plate (43) of a mold and enclosed with a cover (60). The cover is slidably moveable relative to the groove to allow an injection nozzle (81) which extends through the cover to become aligned with the fiber. Coating material (92) is introduced through the nozzle into engagement with the spliced end portions after which the cover is moved relative to the base plate to shear across the coating material along the interface between the cover and the base plate. Movement is discontinued when a channel (86) in the cover becomes aligned with the recoated splice. This allows the coating material to be solidified in the presence of a free surface (90) which avoids the formation of bubbles in the coating material and causes the recoated portion to remain in engagement with the original coated portions adjacent to the spliced end portions.

Method and apparatus for recoating spliced end portions of optical fibers

A method of forming optical fibers with improved mode dispersion characteristics is disclosed. The technique involves differential mode-group delay measurement to optimize dispersion by means of appropriate index of refraction configurations. The differential delay measurement technique involves selectively launching light into the multimode fiber using a single mode fiber which is spliced to the multimode fiber using an adjustable splice including an index matching fluid.

Fabrication of optical fibers using differential mode-group delay

A device (70) for switching optical signal paths of the type utilizing a plurality of light-transmitting optical fibers (40, 50) comprises a flexible elongated sleeve (20) having a longitudinally continuous interior cross section (24) with a plurality of corners (30) forming fiber-aligning grooves. The sleeve loosely receives a first fiber (40) from a first sleeve end (26) and a plurality of second fibers (50) from a second sleeve end (28). Each second fiber has its coupling end biased against an assigned corner. Also, the ends of all the second fibers are contained in one transverse plane (23). The coupling end (46) of the first fiber adjacent the transverse plane and a portion (42) of the first fiber, remote from its end, is fixedly secured to the sleeve. Coupling of the first fiber with any of the second fibers is achieved by flexing the sleeve to move the first fiber end to the corner containing the selected second fiber.

Growing community of inventors

Decatur, GA, United States of America

Stephen Clement Mettler