Methods of injection locking for multiple optical source generation
AssigneeCable Television Laboratories, Inc.
InventorsZhensheng Jia, David Daniel Smith, Junwen Zhang, Luis Alberto Campos, Curtis D. Knittle
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Abstract
A coherent optical injection locking (COIL) apparatus generates multiple optical source outputs from a single optical source generated by a parent laser. The COIL apparatus includes a plurality of optical source generators each having a child laser, of lesser performance than the parent laser, that is injection locked to the single optical source. The optical source generators may have one or both of a shared configuration and a cascaded configuration that replicates the single optical source, or a single wavelength of the single optical source when it is a comb source.
Claims17
A method for using a single optical source in an optical communication network, comprising:
- generating an optical source at a first device of the optical communication network using a laser;
- transmitting the optical source over a fiber cable to a fiber node of the optical communication network;
- generating a plurality of first optical sources using first coherent optical injection locking (COIL) within the fiber node, each of the plurality of first optical sources corresponding to a phase, wavelength, wavelength stability, and linewidth of the optical source;
- transmitting one of the plurality of first optical sources to a first network equipment;
- and
- generating a plurality of second optical sources using a second COIL within the first network equipment, each of the plurality of second optical sources having optical characteristics corresponding to optical characteristics of the one first optical source.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.