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:
Apr. 22, 2003
Filed:
Jun. 28, 2001
Simon Xiaofan Cao, Fremont, CA (US);
Avanex Corporation, Fremont, CA (US);
Abstract
An asymmetric de-multiplexer/multiplexer includes: at least a first, second, and third optical fibers; at least one lens optically coupled to the first, second, and third optical fibers; at least one diffraction grating optically coupled to the at least one lens at a side opposite to the first, second, and third optical fibers; and a reflector array optically coupled to the at least one lens at a side opposite to the at least one diffraction grating. The reflector array includes: a substrate, and a plurality of reflectors coupled to the substrate at a side opposite to the at least one lens, where the plurality of reflectors reflects a first subset of channels of a composite optical signal traversing the apparatus, where the subset of channels has irregular inter-channel spacings and non-uniform bandwidths. The apparatus thus is able to overcome bandwidth utilization inefficiencies of conventional regular spaced channel assignment schemes.