Back to results
US 6,788,424 B1Granted
Optical frequency discriminator
AssigneeAgilent Technologies, Inc.
InventorsPaul E Bussard, Mark D Zinser, James R Stimple, Jeffrey Elmer Pape
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An optical frequency discriminator includes an interferometer cascaded with an absorption cell that provide a composite signal. A receiver samples a composite signal and maps to the sample positions of the acquired samples, corresponding optical frequencies of an applied optical signal.
Claims12
An optical frequency discriminator, comprising:
- an interferometer;
- an absorption cell cascaded with the interferometer, the absorption cell having a series of characteristic absorption lines, wherein the cascaded interferometer and absorption cell include a Fabry-Perot interferometer within the absorption cell;
- and
- a receiver coupled to the cascaded interferometer and the absorption cell.
1 more element
An optical frequency discriminator, comprising:
- an interferometer receiving an optical signal and providing a fringe signal in response to the received optical signal;
- an absorption cell cascaded with the interferometer having a series of characteristic absorption lines, the cascaded interferometer and absorption cell forming a composite signal being a superposition of the fringe signal and the series of absorption lines;
- and
- a receiver sampling the composite signal and mapping a corresponding optical frequency within a frequency sweep of the optical signal to each of one or more sample positions of the sampled composite signal based on cycles of the fringe signal and identified optical frequencies of predesignated absorption lines within the series of absorption lines, the receiver isolating the fringe signal from the predesignated absorption lines and determining the number of cycles of the fringe signal between the predetermined absorption lines.
1 more element
An optical frequency discrimination method, comprising:
- providing a composite signal based on a frequency sweep of an optical signal, the composite signal including a fringe signal and a series of absorption lines;
- sampling the composite signal;
- isolating the fringe signal from the series of absorption lines represented in the sampled composite signal;
- identifying the optical frequency of predetermined absorption lines in the series;
- and
- mapping a corresponding optical frequency within the frequency sweep of the optical signal to each of one or more sample positions based on a determined number of cycles of the fringe signal occurring and the identified optical frequencies of the predesignated absorption lines.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.