Optical limiter
AssigneeKiloLambda Technologies Ltd.
InventorsAllan Farber, Ariela Donval, Doron Nevo, Moshe Oron, Ram Oron
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Abstract
An optical power limiter comprises an input optical transmission element, an output optical transmission element, and a power-limiting element disposed between the input and output elements for transmitting optical signals from the input element to the output element. The power-limiting element comprises an optical-limiting solid mixture containing particles of at least one material that produces reversible thermal changes in response to light above a predetermined optical power level, thereby changing the optical transmission properties of the power-limiting element.
Claims29
An optical power limiter comprising
- an input optical transmission element,
- an output optical transmission element, and
- a power-limiting element disposed between said input and output elements for transmitting optical signals from said input element to said output element, said power-limiting element comprising
- an optically transparent solid dielectric matrix material having a refractive index that changes with temperature and containing dispersed light-absorbing nano-powder particles of at least one material that is reversibly heated in response to light above a predetermined optical power level, the heating of said solid nano-powder particles in turn heating said matrix material to produce non-linear changes in the refractive index of said matrix material due to thermal gradients between particles and thereby changing the optical transmission properties of said power-limiting element, said particles having a diameter of less than 0.1 micron and said material being at least one element selected from the group consisting of Ag, Au, Ni, Va, Ti, Co, Cr, C, Re and Si.
An optical power-limiting method for limiting the optical power of
- optical signals transmitted from an input optical transmission element to an output optical transmission element, comprising
- placing a power-limiting element between said input and output elements, said power-limiting element comprising an optically transparent solid dielectric matrix material having a refractive index that changes with temperature and containing dispersed light-absorbing solid nano-powder particles of at least one element selected from the group consisting of Ag, Au, Ni, Va, Ti, Co, Cr, C, Re and Si and having a diameter of less than 0.1 micron, and
- reversibly heating said nano-powder particles in response to light above a predetermined optical power level, the heating of said solid nano-powder particles in turn heating said matrix material to produce non-linear changes in the refractive index of said matrix material due to thermal gradients between particles and thereby changing the optical transmission properties of said power-limiting element.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.