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US 7,466,881 B1Granted
Optical switch
AssigneeHewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
InventorsDavid A. Fattal, Jong-Souk Yoo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An optical switch includes an optical source; a plurality of tunable optical resonators or tunable waveguides in optical communication with the optical source; and a tuning device configured to selectively route an optical beam from the optical source to at least one optical destination by tuning at least one of the optical resonators or tunable waveguides, in optical communication with at least one optical destination, to a wavelength characteristic of the optical beam.
Claims20
An optical switch, comprising:
- an optical source;
- at least three interconnected tunable optical resonators or tunable waveguides, wherein a first tunable optical resonator or tunable waveguide is optically coupled to said optical source and each remaining tunable optical resonator or tunable waveguide is optically coupled to one of a plurality of respective optical destinations;
- and
- a tuning device configured to selectively route an optical beam from said optical source to at least one of said optical destinations by tuning at least said first tunable optical resonator or tunable waveguide and at least one of said remaining tunable optical resonators or tunable waveguides to a wavelength characteristic of said optical beam.
1 more element
An optical switch, comprising:
- a photonic crystal body having a first optical resonant cavity in communication with an optical source and a plurality of additional optical resonant cavities in communication with a respective plurality of optical destinations;
- and
- a tuning device configured to selectively route an optical beam from said optical source to at least one of said optical destinations by tuning said first optical resonant cavity and at least one of said additional optical resonant cavities to a characteristic wavelength of said optical beam.
A method of selectively routing an optical beam, comprising:
- providing at least three interconnected tunable optical resonators or tunable waveguides;
- providing an optical source in optical communication with at least one of said tunable optical resonators or tunable waveguides;
- providing a plurality of optical destinations, each said optical destination being in optical communication with a respective remaining tunable optical resonator or tunable waveguide;
- tuning a said tunable optical resonator or tunable waveguide that is in communication with said optical source to a characteristic wavelength of said optical source;
- and
- tuning a said tunable optical resonator or waveguide that is in optical communication with an intended destination to said characteristic wavelength.
3 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.