The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 14, 1987
Filed:
Jun. 28, 1985
Robert G Swartz, Highlands, NJ (US);
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, AT&T Bell Labs, Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
The novel technique for stabilizing an electronic device, e.g., a semiconductor laser, is disclosed. The technique can advantageously be used to stabilize the bias current of such a laser at or near the lasing threshold of the device. A preferred application of thus stabilized lasers is in optical communication systems. The inventive technique comprises determination of a derivative of a variable characteristic of the device operation, e.g., the voltage across a laser, with respect to a parameter, e.g., the laser bias current. The derivative is determined by a novel method. For the particular case of laser bias stabilization, the method comprises injecting one or more nonsinusoidal ac current components into the laser, and phase-sensitivity detecting the voltage changes at the ac frequencies. The method can, in principle, be used to determine derivatives of arbitrarily high order. A circuit capable of determining the second, third and fourth derivatives of the voltage as a function of bias current is disclosed. The derivative extraction method can also be embodied in measurement apparatus, and as useful in other process control applications.