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US 9,851,615 B2Granted
Optical modulator
AssigneeLumentum Operations LLC
InventorsCharles M. Jewart, Yannick Lize, Karl Kissa
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Abstract
An optical modulator is disclosed, in which a MMI couplers are used for input signal splitting for branching into individual Mach-Zehnder interferometers, as well as for branching and combining from individual Mach-Zehnder waveguides. MMI couplers, splitters, and combiners may be cascaded and combined with single-mode Y-splitters and combiners to provide modulators of various types, including dual polarization, quadrature phase Mach-Zehnder interferometer base optical modulators.
Claims20
An optical modulator comprising:
- an optical splitter comprising:
- an input port for receiving light;
- a multimode interference optical splitter downstream of the input port for splitting the light received at the input port;
- and
- first to fourth output ports for outputting the split light;
- and
- at least one Mach-Zehnder interferometer including a Mach-Zehnder combiner,
- the Mach-Zehnder combiner including:
- a plurality of ingress ports, each corresponding to a different one of the first to fourth output ports, and an egress port;
- a multimode interference coupler between the plurality of ingress ports and the egress port;
- and
- another non-ingress port.
9 more elements
An optical modulator comprising:
- a multimode interference optical splitter comprising an input port for receiving light and first to Mth output ports for outputting split light, wherein M is at least 2;
- first and second additional splitters for receiving the split light, further splitting the split light, and outputting the further split light on first to Nth output ports, wherein N is at least 4;
- and
- first through (N/2)th Mach-Zehnder interferometers, each Mach-Zehnder interferometer, of the first through (N/2)th Mach-Zehnder interferometers, including:
- a Mach-Zehnder combiner including:
- a plurality of ingress ports, each corresponding to a different one of the first to Nth output ports, and an egress port;
- and
- a multimode interference coupler between the plurality of ingress ports and the egress port.
5 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.