Avanex Corporation

Other

Avamex Corporation

Xiaofan Cao

Guohua Xiao

Lintao Zhang

Xiaoping Charles Mao

Shudong Wu

Charles Mao

Thomas F Cooney

A self-adjusting optical add-drop multiplexer monitors the power in a drop signal and attenuates the power in an add signal to match the power in express WDM channels (signals). When used in a fiber network, and more particularly, in a metro network, the deleterious effects of optical amplification are reduced. Power attenuation is also used in an optical switching assembly particularly useful in two-fiber ring network. The optical switching assembly monitors drop channels from the two rings of the network and attenuates the add channel(s) accordingly. An optical switch operates to direct the drop signal from one of the two rings to a receiver in accordance with a control signal based on the monitored drop channels. The self-adjusting optical add-drop multiplexer also monitors the power in the drop signals and issues an alarm if the drop signal is of a power level above or below predetermined levels.

Self-adjusting optical add-drop multiplexer and optical networks using same

The present invention provides the method and apparatus for multi-pass photonic processors with the use of circulators and multiple-fiber collimators. In one embodiment of the present invention, a circulator and a reflective element are placed at either end of a chain of cascaded processors. The circulator at a first end routes the light signal to be processed and passed from one processor to the next, the reflective element at a second end reflects the light to be reprocessed and passed from one processor to the previous, the light signal eventually reaches the circulator again and exits. In another embodiment of the present invention, multiple fiber strands are connected to the collimator of a photonic processor. Furthermore, all fiber strands are paired in order to reroute the light signals for reprocessing in the photonic processor.

Method and apparatus for multi-pass photonic processors with circulators and multiple-fiber collimators

A bi-directional amplifier system comprises a 2&times;2 interleaved channel separator optically coupled to both a first and a second bi-directional fiber optic communications line and an optical amplifier optically coupled to the 2&times;2 interleaved channel separator. A method of bi-directional optical amplification comprises the steps of: (a) inputting a first plurality of optical channels from a first optical communications line to and a second plurality of optical channels from a second optical communications line to first port and a second port, respectively, of a 2&times;2 interleaved channel separator; (b) outputting the first plurality and the second plurality of optical channels from a third port of the interleaved channel separator to the input of an optical amplifier; (c) outputting the first plurality and the second plurality of optical channels from the output of the optical amplifier to a fourth port of the interleaved channel separator; and (d) outputting the first plurality of optical channels to the second fiber optic communications line and the second plurality of optical channels to the first fiber optic communication s line from the interleaved channel separator.

Bidirectional optical amplifier

A reconfigurable AGC loop design for an optical amplifier with a software provisional switch in the AGC loop inside the optical amplifier is disclosed. On the input side, there is a 1&times;m switch for switching a first input to the input of an optical amplifier, or to route other external pins to the optical amplifier. On the output side, there is a 1&times;n switch for switching a first output to the output of an optical amplifier, or to route other external pins to the optical amplifier. The AGC loop inside an optical amplifier is available to operate with other external signals. This reconfigurability unleashes the AGC loop capability that is traditionally confined to individual optical amplifier, provides flexibility, and greatly simplifies the design of optical node.

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Fremont, CA, United States of America

Xiaofan Cao