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:
Aug. 12, 1997
Filed:
Jun. 07, 1995
Ming Li, Oxford, GB;
Stephen Sheard, Kidlington, GB;
Biota Corp., Locust Valley, NY (US);
Abstract
An optical waveguide device comprising an optical waveguide for guiding an optical wave therethrough and a grating coupler, which is located on a surface of or in the vicinity of the optical waveguide and which couples the guided optical wave traveling in the optical waveguide with an external optical wave. The grating coupler is provided with a row of teeth spaced apart by a gap and positioned periodically or quasi-periodically with a pitch along the optical axis. The teeth have front and rear sidewalls, width and height, front and rear blaze angles less than 90.degree., and preferably have a parallelogramic profile. The width to period ratio of the grating teeth can be variable along the guided wave propagation direction so that the radiated beam can be shaped to a designed profile. The guided wave is radiated very efficiently with a predetermined profile out of the optical waveguide; or an external optical wave, which takes a known form, is introduced very efficiently into the optical waveguide. These grating couplers of the present invention are used in combination with semiconductor lasers and solid state diode detectors to provide improved active and passive opto-electronic devices respectively.