US 2004/0165857 A1 · Compact hybrid integrated optical dynamic channel equalizer

Abstract

An integrated optical dynamic channel equalizer that can be employed to equalize the channel gain level in a WDM transmission line and monitor the optical channel performance. The device consists of a circulator, a dynamic gain equalizer chip and a controller. Due to the simplicity of the dynamic gain equalizer chip, which includes one 1×n multiplexer/demultiplexer, an n-channel variable optical attenuator array (VOA-n), a partially transparent dielectric reflective means and an n-channel detector array, the device is very compact and can be fabricated at low cost. By placing a quarter wave plate between the n-channel variable optical attenuator array and the partially transparent reflective means in the dynamic channel equalizer chip, the device can be rendered polarization insensitive.

Claims14

Dependent claims

A dynamic optical channel equalizer comprising:

an optical demultiplexer for demulitplexing a received optical signal into a plurality of optical channel signals;
a variable optical attenuator array having a plurality of variable optical attenuators, each variable optical attenuator for receiving and attenuating one of the plurality of optical channel signals;
a partially transparent reflector positioned to reflect a portion of each attenuated optical channel signal to an optical multiplexer, and to transmit a portion of the remainder of each attenuated optical channel signal;
and
an equalization controller for receiving the transmitted portions and for controlling each variable optical attenuator based on a comparison between a required gain level and an actual gain level of its respective optical channel signal to equalize channel gain.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Compact hybrid integrated optical dynamic channel equalizer

Life of this patent

Compact hybrid integrated optical dynamic channel equalizer

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims14