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:
Feb. 26, 2002
Filed:
Nov. 12, 1999
William Robert Holland, Warrington, PA (US);
Lucent Technologies Inc., Murray Hill, NJ (US);
Abstract
A multi-fiber optical delay line incorporates a plurality of optical fibers nestedly positioned and affixed to a planar substrate. The fibers include input portions that are linearly and proximately positioned on the substrate, and of equivalent length. The fibers also include output portions that are linearly and proximately positioned on the substrate, and of equivalent length. The input and output portions of each fiber are interconnected by a u-shaped connecting portion, and each connecting portion is positioned to have a unique and predetermined length. The predetermined lengths are selected such that differences in length between a shortest fiber and another fiber in the plurality of fibers are equivalent to a fiber length that would be traversed by the input signal during a time period required for the transmission of a predetermined number of bits in the digital signal. The input portions of the fibers are coupled to an optical splitter which provides one copy of an input signal substantially simultaneously to each of the input portions. In a preferred embodiment of the invention, a planar heater and overcoating are used to control the thermal profile across the plurality of fibers.