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:
Oct. 07, 2008
Filed:
Aug. 07, 2006
Christopher W. Tischhauser, San Mateo, CA (US);
James E. Mason, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Christopher W. Tischhauser, San Mateo, CA (US);
James E. Mason, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Lockheed Martin Corporation, Bethesda, MD (US);
Abstract
Optical filters tunable for both center wavelength and bandwidth, having applications such as in astronomy, remote sensing, laser spectroscopy, and other laser-based sensing applications, using Michelson interferometers or Mach-Zehnder interferometers modified with Gires-Tournois interferometers ('GTIs') are disclosed. A GTI nominally has unity magnitude reflectance as a function of wavelength and has a phase response based on its resonator characteristics. Replacing the end mirrors of a Michelson interferometer or the fold mirrors of a Mach-Zehnder interferometer with GTIs results in both high visibility throughput as well as the ability to tune the phase response characteristics to change the width of the bandpass/notch filters. A range of bandpass/bandreject optical filter modes, including a Fabry-Perot ('FP') mode, a wideband, low-ripple FP mode, a narrowband notch/bandpass mode, and a wideband notch/bandpass mode, are all tunable and wavelength addressable.