Switchable optical components/structures and methods for the fabrication thereof
First Claim
1. A switchable optical component comprising:
- an ESBG element;
first and second electrodes positioned on opposite sides of said element for selectively applying an electric field thereacross;
at least one optical input path to said element and at least one optical output path from said element, at least one of said input optical paths and said output optical paths being guided wave optical paths;
the optical effect which the element has on optical signals inputted thereto, and thus any optical signal appearing on said at least one output, varying as a function of the electric field applied across the element.
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Abstract
A variety of optical components or nodes are provided which components are formed utilizing holographically polymerized polymer/liquid crystal composites, and which components include free space/unguided wave switches, guided wave switches, out/in couplers, reflection nodes/reflection filters and guided wave interconnect nodes. Selected ones of these nodes may be designed to operate either in a single wavelength mode or in a multiwavelength WDM mode. All of the components are switchable so as to able to modify the component output to which an optical signal received on a component input is applied as a function of an electric field applied across the component, and to vary the channel outputted on a given output for WDM operation. Nodes of the same type or node of two or more different types may be interconnected into two dimensional and/or three dimensional structures, particularly switching structures for a telecommunications or other purposes, including such structures adapted for multiwavelength operation. For preferred embodiments, guided wave optical paths, and in particular waveguides, are utilized for node interconnects, with various techniques being presented for forming nodes and/or structures as integrated optical structures.
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Citations
30 Claims
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1. A switchable optical component comprising:
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an ESBG element; first and second electrodes positioned on opposite sides of said element for selectively applying an electric field thereacross; at least one optical input path to said element and at least one optical output path from said element, at least one of said input optical paths and said output optical paths being guided wave optical paths; the optical effect which the element has on optical signals inputted thereto, and thus any optical signal appearing on said at least one output, varying as a function of the electric field applied across the element. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17)
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18. A switchable optical structure comprising:
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a least two ESBG nodes, each of which has at least one optical input and at least one optical output; N optical inputs, each optical input being optically connected to a node input; optical interconnects within the structure joining selected node outputs to selected node inputs; M optical outputs, each optical output being optically connected to a node output; and controls for selectively applying electric fields across the node ESBG'"'"'s to control the optical outputs to which optical signals appearing at the optical inputs are applied. - View Dependent Claims (19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30)
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Specification