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US 5,631,760 AGranted
Apparatus for the optical heterodyne reception of signals
AssigneeAlcatel
InventorRolf Heidemann
Life of this patent
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Abstract
The invention relates to a heterodyne receiver, preferably for multichannel reception, especially for the reception of optical signals, in which the received signal is mixed with an oscillator signal of an oscillator in a mixing stage, to generate an intermediate frequency in an intermediate frequency stage (IF stage). According to the invention, the frequency (f.sub.LO) of the oscillator is tuneable discontinuously in jumps (Sp1, Sp2), and the intermediate frequency stage is tuneable continuously.
Claims7
Optical heterodyne receiver comprising
- an optical oscillator for providing an oscillator signal,
- a mixing stage for receiving a received signal as well as the oscillator signal and for providing a difference frequency signal in response thereto, and
- an intermediate frequency stage responsive to the difference frequency signal for providing an output signal centered about an intermediate frequency, wherein
- the oscillator signal provided by the optical oscillator has an oscillator frequency which is tuneable only discontinuously, in jumps, and
- the output signal provided by the intermediate stage has an IF frequency which is tuneable continuously over a predetermined tuning range.
2 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.