Optical allocation for dynamic gain balancer and adder-subtractor

Abstract

An optical device for rerouting and modifying an optical signal is disclosed. The optical design includes a front-end unit for providing a collimated beam of light, an element having optical power for providing collimating / focusing effects, a diffraction element for providing spatial dispersion, and modifying means which in a preferred embodiment includes one of a MEMS array and a liquid crystal array for reflecting and modifying at least a portion of a beam of light. The modifying means functions as an attenuator when the optical device operates as a DGE and as a switching array when the optical device operates as a COADM.

Description

technical field

[0001] The present invention relates to an optical device for rerouting and correcting an optical signal, or more particularly to an optical arrangement comprising a diffraction grating that can be used as a dynamic gain equalizer and / or a configurable add / subtract multiplexer. Background technique

[0002] In an optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) communication system, an optical waveguide simultaneously transmits a plurality of different communication channels according to different wavelengths. In a WDM system, it is desirable to verify that all channels have approximately the same power. To achieve this, gain equalizers are placed at various points throughout the system to control the corresponding power levels of the corresponding channels.

[0003] Dense WDM systems require special add / drop multiplexers (ADMs) to add and remove specific channels (ie, wavelengths). For example, at predetermined nodes in the system, optical signals of predet...

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