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:
Oct. 20, 1998
Filed:
Dec. 06, 1995
Neophytos Andreas Antoniades, Long Island City, NY (US);
Krishna Bala, Eatontown, NJ (US);
Georgios Nicos Ellinas, New York, NY (US);
Sung-Joo Yoo, Long Branch, NJ (US);
Tellium, Inc., Oceanport, NJ (US);
Abstract
A wavelength-interchanging cross-connect for use as an optical switch within a wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM) communications network in which multiple optical carrier signals at different optical wavelengths are switched in an all-optical process according to their wavelength. The cross-connect of the invention further allows the optical wavelength of the signal being switched to be changed to another WDM wavelength. The cross-connect includes a series of multi-wavelength 2.times.2 spatial optical switches. One serial path is directly connected between the spatial switches. The other serial path leads through intermediate wavelength-interchanging modules that interchange the carrier wavelengths of at least one pair of signals. Preferably, the wavelength interchanging is performed by difference frequency generation relying on second-order non-linear susceptibilities and a pump signal providing parametric gain. The frequency of the pump signal is chosen to be the sum of the frequencies of whatever optical signals are to be interchanged, and more than one pair can simultaneously be interchanged. The placement of the pumping frequencies is determined by a design process using a modified version of a recursively designed Benes network. As a result, the wavelength-interchanging cross connect can be controlled by the well known looping algorithm known for Benes networks to be rearrangeably non-blocking.