Optical switch and optical disk drive
AssigneeSony Corporation
InventorsMasahiro Yamada, Kiyoshi Osato
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Disclosed herein is an optical switch including: a dielectric substrate having a pair of main surfaces opposed to each other; and a pair of electrodes formed on the main surfaces of the dielectric substrate; wherein a direction of emergence of a light beam propagating in the dielectric substrate is controlled according to an electric field applied from the electrodes to the dielectric substrate; the dielectric substrate being formed with a periodic structure of polarization inverted domains each having a given shape; the light beam being incident on domain walls of the polarization inverted domains; the electrode formed on at least one of the main surfaces being separated into at least first and second electrodes in a direction of propagation of the light beam.
Claims10
An optical switch comprising:
- a dielectric substrate having a pair of main surfaces opposed to each other and having an input face and an output face, a light beam propagating through said dielectric substrate from said input face to said output face;
- and
- a pair of electrodes formed on said main surfaces of said dielectric substrate;
- said dielectric substrate being formed with a periodic structure of polarization inverted domains each having a given shape;
- said light beam being incident on domain walls of said polarization inverted domains;
- said electrode formed on at least one of said main surfaces being separated into at least first and second electrodes in a direction of propagation of said light beam,
- wherein an electric field applied from said electrodes to said dielectric substrate controls an amount of diffraction of said light beam propagating through said dielectric substrate, and thereby controls a direction of emergence of light output from said output face of said dielectric substrate.
An optical switch comprising:
- a dielectric substrate having a pair of main surfaces opposed to each other;
- a pair of electrodes formed on said main surfaces of said dielectric substrate;
- wherein a direction of emergence of a light beam propagating in said dielectric substrate is controlled according to an electric field applied from said electrodes to said dielectric substrate;
- said dielectric substrate being formed with a periodic structure of polarization inverted domains each having a given shape;
- said light beam being incident on domain walls of said polarization inverted domains;
- said electrode formed on at least one of said main surfaces being separated into at least first and second electrodes in a direction of propagation of said light beam, and further comprising:
- first and second optical fibers provided so as to respectively correspond to said first and second electrodes, for selectively transmitting said light beam emerged from said dielectric substrate;
- and
- a lens for introducing said light beam to one of said first and second optical fibers.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.