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:
Jan. 19, 1999
Filed:
Apr. 10, 1997
Martin R Amersfoort, Shrewsbury Township, NJ (US);
Pierre-Andre Besse, Renens, CH;
Hans Melchior, Zurich, CH;
Meint K Smit, Delft, NL;
Cornelis Van Dam, Zoetermeer, NL;
U.S. Philips Corporation, New York, NY (US);
Abstract
An optical device, such as for example a wavelength division multiplexer/demultiplexer, a wavelength router, an optical comb filter or a planar lens, having a first coupler and a second coupler which are connected by an array of optical waveguide channels. At least one of the couplers is a multimode imaging component (MMI), which has the property that the radiation distribution at any input thereof is imaged onto each of the coupler outputs and with uniform power distribution among the outputs. Efficient power transfer in thereby achieved. Phase differences between the inputs and the outputs are compensated by appropriate differences in optical pathlength of neighboring channels in the array.