Dynamic phase shift compensation for free carrier effect photonic switches
AssigneeHuawei Technologies Co., Ltd.
InventorsJia Jiang, Dominic John Goodwill, Eric Bernier
Life of this patent
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Abstract
Monitoring output power levels of a carrier-effect based switching cell allows phase errors resulting from driving a PIN or PN junction of the switching cell to be dynamically compensated for. The compensation may also allow for compensating of phase errors resulting from the phase imbalance of input couplers as well as phase errors from the waveguide due to fabrication variations. By dynamically compensating for phase errors caused by the driving of the PIN or PN junction, the extinction ratio of the carrier-effect based switching cell can be increased.
Claims9
A method of compensating phase shift errors in a carrier effect based switching cell, the method comprising:
- applying an amount of phase shift compensation to a phase compensator of the switching cell to compensate for phase shift errors in the switching cell, the amount of phase shift compensation being determined in accordance with:
- maximizing a difference between a first optical power level of an optical signal at a first output of the switching cell and a second optical power level of the optical signal at a second output of the switching cell when the first optical power level is greater than the second optical power level;
- and maximizing a difference between the second power level and the first power level when the second optical power level is greater than the first power level.
A method of compensating phase shift errors in a carrier effect based switching cell, the method comprising:
- detecting a first power level of an optical signal at a first output of the switching cell;
- detecting a second power level of an optical signal at a second output of the switching cell;
- determining an amount of phase shift compensation to apply based on the detected first power level of the optical signal at the first output;
- and
- applying the determined amount of phase shift compensation to a phase compensator of the switching cell to compensate for phase shift errors in the switching cell,
- wherein determining the amount of phase shift compensation to apply further includes:
- determining if the first power level is greater than the second power level, determining the amount of phase shift compensation to apply for increasing a difference between the first power level and the second power level when the first power level is greater than the second power level, and
- determining the amount of phase shift compensation to apply for increasing a difference between the second power level and the first power level when the first power level is not greater than the second power level;
- wherein increasing the difference between the first power level and the second power level comprises maximizing the difference between the first power level and the second power level and increasing the difference between the second power level and the first power level comprises maximizing the difference between the second power level and the first power level.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.