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. 08, 1997
Filed:
Aug. 24, 1995
Suganda Jutamulia, Fremont, CA (US);
Kowa Company, Ltd., Tokyo, JP;
Abstract
To measure the coherence length of light, an incident beam (20) is caused to interfere with replicas of itself after having variable delays. Variable delays are generated by passing a beam (40) that is a part of the incident beam (20) around a loop (46). The beam partially leaves the loop (46) at each cycle and partially continues looping. A beam (44) with multiple delays leaving from the loop (46) is caused to interfere with a beam (56) that is another part of the incident beam (20) without delay, to create an output beam (60). The intensity of output beam (60) is affected by multiple delays caused by the loop (46), and depends on the coherence length of the incident beam (20). Therefore, the coherence length of the incident beam (20) can be obtained by detecting the intensity of output beam (60). When the coherence length of light is sufficiently large, by setting the resultant intensity of output beam (60) to be zero, the interferometer can also be used for high speed switching of laser light, based on a transient phenomenon.