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:
Mar. 21, 2000
Filed:
May. 29, 1997
Gary S Duck, Nepean, Ontario, CA;
Koichi Abe, Ottawa, Ontario, CA;
Joseph Ip, Kanata, Ontario, CA;
Mark Farries, Nepean, Ontario, CA;
Paul Colbourne, Nepean, Ontario, CA;
Other;
Abstract
A system and method are disclosed for demulitplexing closely spaced channels carrying optically encoded data. A composite optical signal having data channels corresponding to center wavelengths .lambda.1, .lambda.2, .lambda.3, .lambda.4, . . . .lambda.n are separated into two composite optical signals of first of which comprises data channels corresponding to center wavelengths .lambda.1, .lambda.3, . . . .lambda.n and a second which comprises data channels corresponding to center wavelengths .lambda.2, .lambda.4, . . . .lambda.n-1, wherein adjacent channels center wavelengths are separated from one another by a distance 'd'. A periodic multi-cavity Fabry-Perot etalon having a free spectral range of '2d' is coupled to a circulator for launching an input beam. The first of the two composite optical signals carrying channels 1, 3, . . . n is reflected from the input port of the etalon and the second of the of the two optical signals carrying channels 2, 4, . . . n-1 is transmitted through the etalon. After the two signals are separated, further separation can be achieved by using conventional dichroic filters.