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:
Dec. 16, 2003
Filed:
Jan. 11, 2002
Digant P. Dave, Austin, TX (US);
Thomas E. Milner, Austin, TX (US);
Sergey Telenkov, Austin, TX (US);
Board of Regents, The University of Texas System, Austin, TX (US);
Abstract
One form of the present invention is a dual channel optical reflectometer composed of a birefringent path coupler and an optical source path that is optically connected to the path coupler. After entering the path coupler, light is split into birefringent reference and sample paths. The reference path is optically aligned with a first collimating lens, and the collimating lens is directed into a scanning delay line. There is also a birefringent optical sample path that is also optically connected to the path coupler. The sample path is optically aligned with a polarization channel separator/combiner and a lens, to focus and direct optical beams into the turbid sample. Light backscattered from the turbid sample is collected by the second lens and orthogonal polarization channels are reunited by the polarization channel combiner. An analog-to-digital converter is connected to the amplifier, and a computer is connected to the analog-to-digital converter to analyze the output.