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:
Jan. 21, 2014
Filed:
Sep. 15, 2008
Brent E. Little, Glen Head, NY (US);
Brent E. Little, Glen Head, NY (US);
Infinera Corporation, Sunnyvale, CA (US);
Abstract
Consistent with the present disclosure an optical filter is provided that preferably includes a plurality of looped or ring-shaped waveguides provided on a substrate which are coupled to one another by tunable couplers. Portions of each waveguide constitute part of each tunable coupler, which may include, for example, a Mach-Zehnder interferometer. A heater may be thermally coupled to one or both arms of the Mach-Zehnder interferometer, to thereby adjust an amount of optical coupling between adjacent looped waveguides. The filter bandwidth (i.e., the spectral width of the passband), which, as noted above, is related to such coupling, can thus also be tuned or varied. Additional heaters may be provided to tune the center wavelength of the passband so that a filter having both a variable passband spectral width and center wavelength can be obtained.