Optical switch incorporating stepped faceted mirrors
AssigneeAgilent Technologies, Inc.
InventorsDatong Chen, John C. Philipp, Ian Hardcastle
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
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AssigneeAgilent Technologies, Inc.
InventorsDatong Chen, John C. Philipp, Ian Hardcastle
Estimating the term…
An optical switch that includes optical paths organized into a set of M input optical paths and a set of N output optical paths. The optical switch additionally includes a faceted mirror corresponding to each of the M input optical paths and including N facets and a faceted mirror corresponding to each of the N output optical paths and including M facets. Finally, the optical switch includes a moving mechanism coupled to each faceted mirror to step the faceted mirror to selectively align one of the facets of the faceted mirror with the one of the optical paths with which the faceted mirror is associated. The facets of each of the faceted mirrors corresponding to one of the sets of optical paths, i.e., the set of input optical paths or the set of output optical paths, are preferably angled to reflect light towards a different one of the faceted mirrors corresponding to the other of the sets of optical paths, i.e., the set of output optical paths or the set of input optical paths, respectively.
An optical switch, comprising:
A method for switching an optical signal received via an input optical path to an output optical path, the input optical path being any one of an array of M input optical paths, the output optical path being any one of an array of N output optical paths, the method comprising:
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.