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:
Apr. 04, 1989
Filed:
Mar. 03, 1986
Kuniharu Takizawa, Tokyo, JP;
Nippon Hoso Kyokai, Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
An optical element comprising: a substrate; an optical waveguide arranged on the substrate; and flat electrodes disposed asymmetrically about the optical waveguide. An electric field is applied through the flat electrodes to the substrate and the optical waveguide so that a refractive index of a portion of the substrate in the vicinity of the optical waveguide is varied to interrupt a light beam propagating through the optical waveguide. The optical modulation, optical switching or the like can be carried out by electrically controlling the difference between refractive indices of the optical waveguide and the substrate in the horizontal direction, so that the nonuniformity of the refractive index of the optical waveguide which causes some problems in conventional branching interference type optical modulator and directional optical coupler do not cause any problem. The optical element has a higher light extinction ratio and the output light is by far stabilized against the variation in temperature.