343 results about "Mode coupling" patented technology

The present invention is directed toward a fiber optic position and shape sensing device and the method of use. The device comprises an optical fiber means. The optical fiber means comprises either at least two single core optical fibers or a multicore optical fiber having at least two fiber cores. In either case, the fiber cores are spaced apart such that mode coupling between the fiber cores is minimized. An array of fiber Bragg gratings are disposed within each fiber core. A broadband reference reflector is positioned in an operable relationship to each fiber Bragg grating wherein an optical path length is established for each reflector / grating relationship. A frequency domain reflectometer is positioned in an operable relationship to the optical fiber means. In use, the device is affixed to an object. Strain on the optical fiber is measured and the strain measurements correlated to local bend measurements. Local bend measurements are integrated to determine position or shape of the object.

The central system component of the present invention is a flexible “smart cable” which enables accurate measurement of local curvature and torsion along its length. These quantities are then used to infer the position and attitude of one end of the cable relative to the other. Sufficiently accurate measurements of the local curvature and torsion along the cable allow reconstruction of the entire cable shape, including the relative position and orientation of the end points. The smart cable for making these measurements comprises a multicore optical fiber, with individual fiber cores constructed to operate in the single mode regime, but positioned close enough to cause cross-talk (mode coupling) between cores over the length of the fiber. This cross-talk is very sensitive to the distribution of strains (curvature and torsion) along the cable.

The present invention is directed toward a fiber optic position and shape sensing device and the method of use. The device comprises an optical fiber means. The optical fiber means comprises either at least two single core optical fibers or a multicore optical fiber having at least two fiber cores. In either case, the fiber cores are spaced apart such that mode coupling between the fiber cores is minimized. An array of fiber Bragg gratings are disposed within each fiber core and a frequency domain reflectometer is positioned in an operable relationship to the optical fiber means. In use, the device is affixed to an object. Strain on the optical fiber is measured and the strain measurements correlated to local bend measurements. Local bend measurements are integrated to determine position and / or shape of the object.

The present invention is directed toward a fiber optic position and shape sensing device and the method of use. The device comprises an optical fiber means. The optical fiber means comprises either at least two single core optical fibers or a multicore optical fiber having at least two fiber cores. In either case, the fiber cores are spaced apart such that mode coupling between the fiber cores is minimized. An array of fiber Bragg gratings are disposed within each fiber core and a frequency domain reflectometer is positioned in an operable relationship to the optical fiber means. In use, the device is affixed to an object. Strain on the optical fiber is measured and the strain measurements correlated to local bend measurements. Local bend measurements are integrated to determine position and / or shape of the object.

A device includes an integrated power receive circuit, a battery charger, a battery, a processing module, one or more input / output modules, and one or more circuit modules. The integrated power receive circuit is operable to generate a DC voltage from a received magnetic field in accordance with a control signal. The battery charger is operable to convert the DC voltage into a battery charge voltage. The battery is coupled to the battery charger in a first mode and is coupled to supply power in a second mode. The processing module is operable to: generate the control signal based on desired electromagnetic properties of at least one of the received magnetic field and the integrated power receive circuit; process outbound data to produce processed outbound data; and process inbound data to produce processed inbound data.

A laser utilizes a cavity design which allows the stable generation of high peak power pulses from mode-locked multi-mode fiber lasers, greatly extending the peak power limits of conventional mode-locked single-mode fiber lasers. Mode-locking may be induced by insertion of a saturable absorber into the cavity and by inserting one or more mode-filters to ensure the oscillation of the fundamental mode in the multi-mode fiber. The probability of damage of the absorber may be minimized by the insertion of an additional semiconductor optical power limiter into the cavity. To amplify and compress optical pulses in a multi-mode (MM) optical fiber, a single-mode is launched into the MM fiber by matching the modal profile of the fundamental mode of the MM fiber with a diffraction-limited optical mode at the launch end, The fundamental mode is preserved in the MM fiber by minimizing mode-coupling by using relatively short lengths of step-index MM fibers with a few hundred modes and by minimizing fiber perturbations. Doping is confined to the center of the fiber core to preferentially amplify the fundamental mode, to reduce amplified spontaneous emission and to allow gain-guiding of the fundamental mode. Gain-guiding allows for the design of systems with length-dependent and power-dependent diameters of the fundamental mode. To allow pumping with high-power laser diodes, a double-clad amplifier structure is employed. For applications in nonlinear pulse-compression, self phase modulation and dispersion in the optical fibers can be exploited. High-power optical pulses may be linearly compressed using bulk optics dispersive delay lines or by chirped fiber Bragg gratings written directly into the SM or MM optical fiber. High-power cw lasers operating in a single near-diffraction-limited mode may be constructed from MM fibers by incorporating effective mode-filters into the laser cavity. Regenerative fiber amplifiers may be constructed from MM fibers by careful control of the recirculating mode. Higher-power Q-switched fiber lasers may be constructed by exploiting the large energy stored in MM fiber amplifiers.

An optical waveguide includes a substrate in the shape of a flat plate; lower clad that is disposed on the substrate; and a core that is disposed on the lower clad and transmits light. The optical waveguide includes a first optical waveguide and a second optical waveguide. The first optical waveguide includes a first core on the lower clad, and is disposed so as to extend along a direction in which the light travels to a first position. The second optical waveguide includes a second core on the lower clad, is disposed so as to extend along a direction in which the light travels to a second position, and has a lower relative refractive index difference than the first optical waveguide. The first optical waveguide and the second optical waveguide form, between the first position and the second position, a layer structure where the first core and the second core are disposed such that the first core is positioned a predetermined distance away from the second core in a direction perpendicular to the substrate. At least either the first optical waveguide or the second optical waveguide includes a mode coupling section and a mode conversion section. The mode coupling section includes a directional coupler to conduct the mode coupling of the first core and the second core between the first position and the second position. The mode conversion section is connected to the mode coupling section, and has a tapered core structure to adjust the mode diameter of the first core to the mode diameter of the second core.

An electrical interconnection system with high speed, differential electrical connectors. The connector is assembled from wafers each containing a column of conductive elements, some of which form differential pairs. Skew control is provided for at least some of the pairs by providing a profile on an edge of the shorter signal conductor of the pair. The profile may contain multiple curved segments that effectively lengthen the signal conductor without significantly impacting its impedance. For connectors in which ground conductors are included between adjacent pairs of signal conductors, patterned segments of varying parameters may be included on edges of the signal conductors and ground conductors to equalize electrical lengths of all edges in a set of edges for which there is common mode or differential mode coupling as a signal propagates along each pair. Such features for skew control may be used in combination with other skew control features. The features used may vary depending on the location of the pair within the column.

The specification describes an optical fiber device wherein a LOM is converted to an HOM prior to entering the gain section. The gain section is a few mode fiber that supports the HOM. The output from the gain section, i.e. the HOM, may be utilized as is, or converted back to the LOM. With suitable design of the few mode fiber in the gain section of the device, the effective area, Aeff, may be greater than 1600 μm2. The large mode separation in the gain section reduces mode coupling, allowing greater design freedom and reducing the bend sensitivity of the optical fiber.

In a method of polarization optical time-domain reflectometer (P-OTDR) for measuring a parameter of an optical transmission path, for example an optical fiber, by transmitting pulses of light into the path and measuring the state of polarization of backscattered light against distance, statistical analysis of the degree of polarization (DOP) of the backscattered signal is used to detect sections of an optical transmission path for which mode-coupling behaviour (long h) leads to high PMD. Preferably, successive DOP measurement are taken with different state of polarization, SOP, for the P-OTDR light source.

A coordinate input device of touch-type capable of giving an electric signal to a transducer, even if said transducer is disposed on a back surface of a substrate. The device contains acoustic wave transducers (piezoelectric vibrators), each functioning for oscillating a bulk wave (a first wave) toward a top surface of a substrate; a planar wiring formed on a back surface of the substrate by, e.g., transfer printing with conductive paste, for supplying the piezoelectric vibrator with electric power; diffractive acoustic wave mode couplers, each functioning for converting said bulk wave into a surface acoustic wave (a second wave) and vice versa; and a detector to detect scatter in the surface acoustic wave on the top surface of the substrate. Employing the planar wiring allows the wiring to be disposed even on the back surface of the substrate and also it may resolve the problem of fragility associated with a cable wiring.

The invention relates to an optical component (1) comprising a combination of optical waveguide elements for modifying the spot size of a mode of an electromagnetic field propagated by an optical waveguide element, the optical waveguide elements being formed on a substrate. The object of the present invention is to provide a mode coupler with low coupling loss that is easy to manufacture and process tolerant. The problem is solved in that the optical component further comprises a) a first section (10), comprising a first optical waveguide element (11) adapted to sustain at least one mode of the electromagnetic field, b) a second section (20) comprising at least two cooperating optical waveguide elements (21, 22), each of said at least two cooperating optical waveguide elements comprising at least one waveguide segment, said at least two cooperating optical waveguide elements being optically connected to said first optical waveguide element of said first section; wherein said cooperating optical waveguide elements (21, 22) of said second section (20) are adapted to maintain optical coupling between said optical waveguide elements to ensure that said at least one mode of the electromagnetic field is sustained by said at least two cooperating optical waveguide elements in cooperation. Preferably, the waveguides of the first and / or second sections are tapered according to a cosine function or to a 5th or 7th order polynomial. An advantage of an optical component according to the invention is that it provides a mode size converter that is relatively simple to manufacture in that it requires no extra process steps. A further advantage is that it is readily suitable for integration with other optical circuitry on a common substrate. The invention may be used in optical communication systems (e.g. systems employing WDM) where coupling of light between integrated optical circuits and optical fibres are needed.

A modular quantum computer architecture is developed with a hierarchy of interactions that can scale to very large numbers of qubits. Local entangling quantum gates between qubit memories within a single modular register are accomplished using natural interactions between the qubits, and entanglement between separate modular registers is completed via a probabilistic photonic interface between qubits in different registers, even over large distances. This architecture is suitable for the implementation of complex quantum circuits utilizing the flexible connectivity provided by a reconfigurable photonic interconnect network. The subject architecture is made fault-tolerant which is a prerequisite for scalability. An optimal quantum control of multimode couplings between qubits is accomplished via individual addressing the qubits with segmented optical pulses to suppress crosstalk in each register, thus enabling high-fidelity gates that can be scaled to larger qubit registers for quantum computation and simulation.

A phase array of oxide confined VCSELs and a method for forming the phase array of oxide confined VCSELs is described. VCSELs in the array are designed to be simultaneously addressed such that the output of multiple VCSELs can be used to increase the light intensity at a point. In applications where beam coherence from the VCSEL array is desirable, high gain coupling regions break the continuity of the oxide wall surrounding each VCSEL aperture. The high gain coupling regions connect adjacent VCSELs in the VCSEL array thereby allowing mode coupling between adjacent lasers and the output of a coherent beam of light.

The present invention incorporates triple-mode, mono-block resonators that are smaller and less costly. The size reduction has two sources. First, the triple-mode mono-block resonator has three resonators in one block. This provides a 3-fold reduction in size compared to filters currently used which disclose one resonator per block. Secondly, the resonators are not air-filled coaxial resonators as in the standard combline construction, but are dielectric-filled blocks. The coupling between modes is accomplished by the corner cuts. One oriented along the Y axis and one oriented along the Z axis. In addition, a third corner cut along the X axis can be used. Corner cuts are used to couple a mode oriented in one direction to a mode oriented in a second mutually orthogonal direction. Each coupling represents one pole in the filter's response. Therefore, the triple-mode mono-block discussed above represents the equivalent of three poles or three electrical resonators.

A delay filter uses the dielectric mono-block triple-mode resonator and unique inter-resonator coupling structure, having smaller volume and higher power handling capacity. The triple-mode mono-block resonator has three resonators in one block. An input / output probe is connected to each metal plated dielectric block to transmit microwave signals. Corner cuts couple a mode oriented in one direction to a mode oriented in a second, mutually orthogonal direction. An aperture between two blocks couples all six resonant modes, and generates two inductive couplings by magnetic fields between two modes, and one capacitive coupling by electric fields. The input / output probes, coupling corner cuts and aperture are aligned such that all six resonators are coupled in the desired value and sign, so constant delay on the transmitted signal within certain bandwidth can be achieved. By connecting the input and output probes to the base printed circuit board, the delay filter is surface mountable.

In one embodiment, a waveguide lens of the invention has a pair of planar waveguides, e.g., a single-mode waveguide connected to a multimode waveguide. The widths of the two waveguides and the length of the multimode waveguide are selected such that particular mode coupling between the waveguides and multimode interference (MMI) effects in the multimode waveguide cause the latter to output a converging beam of light similar to that produced by a conventional waveguide lens. Advantageously, waveguide lenses of the invention may be used to implement low-loss, low-crosstalk waveguide crossings and / or compact waveguide turns. In addition, waveguide lenses of the invention can be readily and cost-effectively incorporated into waveguide devices designated for large-scale production.

In a method of polarization optical time-domain reflectometer (P-OTDR) for measuring a parameter of an optical transmission path, for example an optical fiber, by transmitting pulses of light into the path and measuring the state of polarization of backscattered light against distance, statistical analysis of the degree of polarization (DOP) of the backscattered signal is used to detect sections of an optical transmission path for which mode-coupling behaviour (long h) leads to high PMD. Preferably, successive DOP measurement are taken with different state of polarization, SOP, for the P-OTDR light source.

A phase array of oxide confined VCSELs and a method for forming the phase array of oxide confined VCSELs is described. VCSELs in the array are designed to be simultaneously addressed such that the output of multiple VCSELs can be used to increase the light intensity at a point. In applications where beam coherence from the VCSEL array is desirable, high gain coupling regions break the continuity of the oxide wall surrounding each VCSEL aperture. The high gain coupling regions connect adjacent VCSELs in the VCSEL array thereby allowing mode coupling between adjacent lasers and the output of a coherent beam of light.

An apparatus and method for transmission of laser pulses with high output beam quality using large core step-index silica optical fibers having thick cladding, are described. The thick cladding suppresses diffusion of modal power to higher order modes at the core-cladding interface, thereby enabling higher beam quality, M2, than are observed for large core, thin cladding optical fibers. For a given NA and core size, the thicker the cladding, the better the output beam quality. Mode coupling coefficients, D, has been found to scale approximately as the inverse square of the cladding dimension and the inverse square root of the wavelength. Output from a 2 m long silica optical fiber having a 100 μm core and a 660 μm cladding was found to be close to single mode, with an M2=1.6. Another thick cladding fiber (400 μm core and 720 μm clad) was used to transmit 1064 nm pulses of nanosecond duration with high beam quality to form gas sparks at the focused output (focused intensity of >100 GW / cm2), wherein the energy in the core was <6 mJ, and the duration of the laser pulses was about 6 ns. Extending the pulse duration provided the ability to increase the delivered pulse energy (>20 mJ delivered for 50 ns pulses) without damaging the silica fiber.

The invention discloses an equipment fault diagnosis method based on multidimensional segmentation fitting. The method successively comprises a fault diagnosis training step and a fault diagnosis operation step. The method realizes mode expression and distance threshold extraction functions of modeling through combining a multidimensional segmentation fitting algorithm and an optimized dynamic time bending algorithm by focusing on the essence of data form characteristics on the basis of equipment fault data, and realizes equipment data fault type identification and cause diagnosis functions by performing mode coupling through extracting form characteristics of discovered equipment abnormal data, thereby solving the problem of incapability of efficiently and accurately describing the similarity degree between fault data by use of a conventional fault diagnosis technology.

A dual-mode acoustic wave resonator (7a) having a resonance mode inter-coupler (6) is disposed across narrow voids (4, 5) from an input electrode (2) and an output electrode (3). They are supported for vibrations on a substrate by conductive posts (27, 28, 29) and a power supply pad (3). Opposing electrodes (10, 11, 21, 23) are formed below the input and output electrodes (2, 3), resonator (7a), and resonance mode inter-coupler (6) across narrow gaps. As a voltage of a power supply (25) is changed, a distortion of the resonator (7a) changes due to an electrostatic force, causing a change in the center resonance frequency. As voltages of power supplies (16, 17) are changed, distortions of the input and output electrodes (2, 3) change to cause a change in the opposing areas of end faces of the input and output electrodes to the resonator (7a). This causes a change in the situation of exchanging energy between the input and output electrodes and the resonator (7a) to change the external Q-value. As the voltage of the power supply (25) is changed, a distortion of the inter-coupler (6) changes to cause a change in the coupling coefficient between the resonance modes.

An optical fiber mode coupling device, capable of being readily connected to a conventional optical fiber with a high degree of ruggedness, is provided. The inventive mode coupling device only allows transmission of at least one supported fiber mode therethrough, and is preferably configured to maximize the coupling, of at least one desired fiber mode, to the at least one supported fiber mode. Advantageously, the inventive mode coupling device is capable of performing the functions of a mode filter for the signal entering its first end, or serving as a mode conditioner for the signal entering its opposite second end. Thus, in one practical application thereof, the novel mode coupling device functions as a mode filter by maximizing the coupling between at least one desired fiber mode of a multi-mode input signal entering the device's first end, and at least one supported mode of the device, to produce an output signal at the device's second end that comprises at least one predetermined fiber mode, corresponding to at least one desired fiber mode. In another practical application thereof, the novel mode coupling device functions as a mode conditioner by maximizing the coupling between an input signal, comprising at least one predetermined fiber mode, that enters the device's second end, and, and at least one supported mode of the device, to produce an output signal at the device's first end that comprises at least one desired fiber mode, corresponding to a conditioned at least one predetermined fiber mode.

A waveguide-mode (WM) coupler having a plurality of single-mode fibers, each optically coupled to a different respective waveguide mode of a multimode fiber. The coupling optics employed by the WM coupler are scalable and include reflective fiber-tip coatings, polarization beam splitters, phase masks, and quarter-wave plates configured to overlap and / or separate the optical beams corresponding to different waveguide modes of the multimode fiber in a manner that does not cause a significant increase in the optical insertion losses with an increase in the number of optical channels in the WM coupler.