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:
May. 13, 2003
Filed:
Nov. 22, 2000
Kadhair Al-hemyari, Northville, MI (US);
LNL Technologies, Inc., Cambridge, MA (US);
Abstract
Optical devices employing a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (“MZI”) device having a phase shifter provided in one arm that enables the construction of significantly smaller optical devices than typical photonic devices, and significantly reduces the amount of on-chip real estate occupied by such devices, while not affecting the ability of such devices to introduce a predetermined phase shift in an optical signal. The present invention takes advantage of the extremely small mechanical actuators which can be fabricated using small-scale fabrication techniques, and so significantly reduces the room needed on a chip for optical switches. These more compact switches require less chip space and so provide for denser integration of a plurality of optical devices in an optical component.