Fast optical wavelength shifter
AssigneeMassachusetts Institute of Technology, a Delaware corporation
InventorsFarhad Hakimi, Hosain Hakimi
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A process shifts wavelengths of optical pulses. The process includes transmitting an incoming optical pulse through a nonlinear optical material, splitting the transmitted pulse into a plurality of mutually coherent optical pulses, and recombining the mutually coherent pulses with temporal delays. The recombined pulses produce a temporal interference pattern. The pattern has a peak whose wavelength is shifted with respect to the wavelength of the incoming optical pulse.
Claims45
A process of shifting wavelengths of optical pulses, comprising:
- transmitting an incoming optical pulse through a nonlinear optical material;
- splitting the transmitted optical pulse into a plurality of mutually coherent optical pulses;
- and
- recombining the mutually coherent optical pulses with inter-pulse temporal delays to produce a temporal interference pattern, the pattern having a peak whose wavelength is shifted with respect to the wavelength of the incoming optical pulse.
An apparatus, comprising:
- a nonlinear optical material capable of modulating wavelengths of optical pulses;
- and
- a temporal grating generator (TGG) capable of producing a series of mutually coherent optical pulses from a received pulse, the TGG optically coupled to the nonlinear optical material.
An optical switch, comprising:
- a wavelength division multiplexer (WDM);
- a wavelength shifter capable of shifting a wavelength of a pulse and coupled to transmit the pulse with a shifted wavelength to the WDM, the wavelength shifter comprising:
- a nonlinear optical material capable of chirping pulses;
- and
- a temporal grating generator (TGG) optically coupled to the nonlinear optical material.
The switch claim of 24, further comprising:
- at least one wavelength shifter connected to an output terminal of the WDM.
A process for routing optical pulses, comprising:
- shifting a wavelength of an incoming pulse by tranmitting the pulse through both a temporal grating generator (TGG) and a nonlinear optical material;
- and
- routing the pulse with a shifted wavelength to one of a plurality of optical output lines based on the shifted wavelength.
A process of shifting wavelengths of optical pulses, comprising:
- splitting an incoming optical into a plurality of mutually coherent optical pulses;
- recombining the mutually coherent optical pulses into a series of pulses with inter-pulse temporal delay;
- transmitting the series of pulse through a nonlinear optical material to produce a temporal interference pattern having a peak whose wavelength is shifted with respect to a wavelength of the incoming optical pulses.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.