Optical waveguide coupler
US6873769B2 · kind B2 · utility
Assignee
Inventors
Key dates
| Filing date | Dec 12, 2000 |
| Grant date | Mar 29, 2005 |
| Priority date | — |
| Expiry date | Apr 27, 2021 |
Classification
- Technology area (CPC G)Physics
- CPC primaryG02B6/12007
- WIPO fieldOptics
- WIPO sectorInstruments
Abstract
An optical waveguide coupler relaxes a phase matching condition and facilitates coupling between an optical waveguide and a resonator. Light in a multimode optical waveguide is coupled directly to a microsphere resonator via evanescent light. Under a nonresonance condition, influence of the microsphere resonator is small, and light propagation through the multimode optical waveguide is not influenced. However, since the intensity of the light stored in the microsphere resonator is high under the resonance condition, even if the coupling efficiency is low, the microsphere resonator outputs light of approximately the same power as that of the light in the multimode optical waveguide. Therefore, a strong coupling condition is always satisfied, and the optical waveguide coupler functions as a filter due to the interference between the light in the multimode optical waveguide and the light that has passed through the microsphere resonator.
Source: USPTO / EPO open patent data. Objective bibliographic and citation counts.