Did You Know...
...that in the early 1940s GE engineer James Wright was charged with a task of utmost importance to the war effort: develop a cheap substitute for rubber that could be used to produce tires, gas masks and a whole host of military gear. Wright tackled the task diligently -- and wound up inventing Silly Putty.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 5809188 | Tunable optical filter or reflector A tunable optical fiber filter or reflector is composed of a single-mode optical fiber having UV-induced fiber gratings in its core region. A planar surface is formed by a mechanical polishing technique such that the planar surface is contiguous to the co... | 09/15/1998 |
| 5781675 | Method for preparing fiber-optic polarizer A method for preparing a fiber-optic polarizer involves a first step in which the cladding layer of a single-mode optical fiber is side-polished to form a planar surface contiguous to the core region of the single-mode optical fiber. The planar surface is... | 07/14/1998 |
| 5710848 | Optimized non-linear effect tapered optical fiber and method of making same A tapered optical fiber component is provided that has an optical fiber with a cladded region. An optical core passes through the cladded region. The cladded region has a tapered extended first region drawn down in diameter to form an effective area regio... | 01/20/1998 |
| 5703980 | Method for low-loss insertion of an optical signal from an optical fibre to a waveguide integrated on to a semiconductor wafer A method and apparatus are provided for coupling light from a fiber to a waveguide on an OEIC (optoelectronic integrated circuit). The region of the fiber to be connected is made into a D-fiber by removing a portion of its cladding. The flat surface is fu... | 12/30/1997 |
| 5689595 | Rare earth-doped fiber amplifier assemblies for fiberoptic networks Assemblies having a first optical circulator, a pumping laser, a rare-earth doped fiber and a first coupler are described. The first coupler has a first fiber connected to the optical circulator, a second fiber connected to said pumping laser, and a third... | 11/18/1997 |
| 5668900 | Taper shapes for sidelobe suppression and bandwidth minimization in distributed feedback optical reflection filters Improvements in distributed feedback optical reflection filters are described. In particular, taper shapes for the optical reflection couplers are determined by a design method based on a variational optimization theory, to provide an out-of-band sidelobe... | 09/16/1997 |
| 5642453 | Enhancing the nonlinearity of an optical waveguide An optical device includes a waveguide and a film or layer of a material having highly nonlinear optical characteristics, in particular a semiconductor material. The film is located so close to the waveguide core that the evanescent field of light propaga... | 06/24/1997 |
| 5636300 | MxO multiplex demultiplex component An M×O multiplex/demultiplex device is disclosed. An M×N coupler is connected to an N×O coupler by phase shifting means. The phase shifting means provide N paths between the couplers, each path having an optical path length different from every other o... | 06/03/1997 |
| 5633748 | Fiber optic Bragg grating demodulator and sensor incorporating same A tapped Bragg grating is used to demodulate optical signals reflected by ber optic Bragg gratings in a sensor in which the line spacings in the fiber optic Bragg gratings vary in response to a mechanical stress. A light detector, or light detector array ... | 05/27/1997 |
| 5625728 | Method of coupling a multi-core optical fiber to a plurality of single-core optical fibers The present invention relates to a method of coupling a multi-core optical fiber to a plurality of single-core optical fibers, the multi-core optical fiber comprising N mutually parallel optical cores (Nࣙ4) embedded in common optical cladding, and each ... | 04/29/1997 |
| 5623567 | Method for making an evanescent field coupler A method for preparing optical fibers for an evanescent field coupler by forming a groove along a top surface of a substrate block, wherein the groove is formed shallower than the diameter of a stripped fiber. An optical fiber is positioned in the groove,... | 04/22/1997 |
| 5539558 | System of detecting troubles of an optical communication line A system of detecting an occurrence of a trouble in an optical communication line having a plurality of nodes with a sending port and a receiving port, a plurality of 2-input & 2-output couplers and fibers connecting the nodes and the couplers for distrib... | 07/23/1996 |
| 5533155 | Evanescent field coupler An evanescent field coupler comprising a coupler holder, a first optical fiber mounted in a first substrate block, and a second optical fiber mounted in a second substrate block. The first substrate block is compliantly mounted to the holder. Means are in... | 07/02/1996 |
| 5515461 | Polarization-independent optical wavelength filter for channel dropping applications The polarization dependence of optical wavelength filters is eliminated by using waveguide directional couplers. Material birefringence is used to compensate for the waveguide (electromagnetic) birefringence which is the original cause of the polarization... | 05/07/1996 |
| 5513288 | Optical polymer element for coupling photoelements onto integrated-optical circuits An integrated-optical device in polymer technology, having a photoelement coupled onto an optical waveguide, with only the evanescent field components of the optical waveguide being coupled by an optical coupling element into the photoelement, wherein the... | 04/30/1996 |
| 5494798 | Fiber optic evanscent wave sensor for immunoassay A coupled pair of fiber optic fibers are used an immunoassay device. The fibers are first coupled and then drawn down to a single mode diameter. The coupler senses output ratio change due to chemical, biochemical, bioaffinity, immunogenic-type interaction... | 02/27/1996 |
| 5479542 | All-fiber in line optical isolator The present invention is directed at an all-fiber in line isolator. The basic isolator includes a monomode optical fiber, a multimode waveguide, a coil or other traditional means to generate a magnetic field, and a fiber block or other traditional means t... | 12/26/1995 |
| 5479546 | Optimized non-linear effect tapered optical fiber interferometer/switch device A tapered optical fiber component is provided that has an optical fiber with a cladded region. An optical core passes through the cladded region. The cladded region has a tapered extended first region drawn down in diameter to form an effective area regio... | 12/26/1995 |
| 5471551 | Component for use in the transmission of optical signals A component to be used for the frequency-selective modulation and/or for the frequency-selective receiving and demodulation of frequency-division multiplexed optical signals. The component of the present invention includes a waveguide, to which multiplexe... | 11/28/1995 |
| 5459801 | Coupler used to fabricate add-drop devices, dispersion compensators, amplifiers, oscillators, superluminescent devices, and communications systems Device for use in adding or dropping light signals at predetermined center wavelengths to or from a wavelength division multiplex, fiber optic transmission system. The device includes an evanescent wave coupler having a coupling region formed from two sin... | 10/17/1995 |
| 5457758 | Add-drop device for a wavelength division multiple, fiber optic transmission system Device for use in adding or dropping light signals at predetermined center wavelengths to or from a wavelength division multiplex, fiber optic transmission system. The device includes an evanescent wave coupler having a coupling region formed from two sin... | 10/10/1995 |
| 5455178 | Microoptical sensor and method A microoptical sensor and a corresponding method for detecting chemical substances in a sample. The sample is brought into contact with the waveguiding layer of a planar optical waveguide. Coherent light is coupled into the waveguiding layer, propagates t... | 10/03/1995 |
| 5448665 | Wavelength-selective optical device utilizing a selectively variable surface acoustic wave grating in a polar organic material A wavelength-selective arrangement interacts with optical radiation propagating in a transmission medium. The arrangement includes a selector member made of a polar organic material which exhibits piezoelectric properties, the selector member having an in... | 09/05/1995 |
| 5446807 | Passband-flattened acousto-optic polarization converter A passband-flattened acousto-optic polarization converter (100) in which two acoustic waveguides (14, 20) are formed in a substrate and a separated by a small gap (18) such that the two acoustic waveguides act as a directional coupler in which acoustic po... | 08/29/1995 |
| 5440656 | Waveguide type optical component having optical coupling sections with different coupling efficiencies A waveguide type optical component, as an optical coupler/splitter, is provided, which is capable of reducing the dependence of the efficiency of optical coupling between optical waveguides on wavelength and of permitting reduction in size. The optical co... | 08/08/1995 |
| 5438639 | Ion-beam deposited, gain enhanced ring resonators An optical waveguide is created using the process of ion beam deposition resulting in a waveguide with low propagation loss, mode discrimination, and gain characteristics. The waveguide is made up of a multilayer stack which is deposited upon a thermally ... | 08/01/1995 |
| 5430813 | Mode-matched, combination taper fiber optic probe A combination tapered V number matching optical fiber probe is disclosed. The combination taper consists of a first short tapered section along the unclad, distal end of an optical fiber. The first short tapered section has a taper angle steeper than the ... | 07/04/1995 |
| 5416864 | Optical fiber amplified tapping network and method using same An optical network includes an erbium-doped silica-based optical fibre having a D-shaped cross-section. The wave-guide carries information signals at 1.53 μm from a signal source and provides amplification to the information signals when pumped by an opt... | 05/16/1995 |
| 5411566 | Optical fiber spatial mode converter using periodic core deformation Efficient conversion between the LP01 and the LP11 modes in a two-mode optical fiber is realized in a fiber grating fabricated by forming a series of longitudinally-spaced cuts in the fiber cladding, and then annealing the fiber in t... | 05/02/1995 |
| 5408546 | Optical fiber pressure transducer and method of manufacturing the same The present invention provides an improved method of manufacturing a pressure transducer of the optical fiber type and an improved pressure transducer of that type, the method including the steps of providing a housing having a greatest interior dimension... | 04/18/1995 |
| 5400421 | Optical demultiplexing/multiplexing device An optical demultiplexing/multiplexing device made with a few stable components by easy fabrication processes, which provides a flat response over the specified frequency range. The optical demultiplexing/multiplexing device built in accordance with the p... | 03/21/1995 |
| 5398296 | Method of fabricating an optical attenuator A method of producing an optical attenuator with any desired attenuation, by parallelly overlapping and welding two fibers at their ends. A light source is connected to one of the fibers and a power meter is connected to the other. The fibers is heated un... | 03/14/1995 |
| 5377285 | Technique for making ultrastable ring resonators and lasers A technique is disclosed for creating an ultrastable ring resonator for use in the field of rotation sensing. The thermal characteristics of the ring resonator are controlled by properly choosing a substrate with thermal characteristics which cancel out t... | 12/27/1994 |
| 5371812 | Waveguide type optical directional coupler Down-sized optical directional coupler with high performance and reduction of power includes a LiTaO3 monocrystal substrate, at least two optical waveguides of a LiNbO3 monocrystalline thin film formed close to and parallel to each o... | 12/06/1994 |
| 5355426 | Broadband MXN optical fiber couplers and method of making A broadband optical fiber coupler comprising at least three continuous optical fibers fused at a region of coupling, at least one of the continuous optical fibers being dissimilar to others of the continuous optical fibers in the region of coupling, the r... | 10/11/1994 |
| 5351323 | Optical fiber for coupling to elliptically-shaped source An optical system for coupling a laser radiation source to a circularly symmetric single-mode optical fiber. The laser radiation source produces a beam of light having an elliptical mode field. The input end of a coupling fiber, which has a core that is e... | 09/27/1994 |
| 5347377 | Planar waveguide liquid crystal variable retarder A waveguide optical device having a guide member for propagation of light in a longitudinal direction. The guide member has upper and lower boundaries. A mass of birefringent material is disposed proximal to the guide member. The birefringent material has... | 09/13/1994 |
| 5323415 | Brillouin ring laser A Brillouin ring laser has a laser source, a resonator ring, a fiber optical coupler arrangement for coupling light waves from the laser source with opposite directions of propagation into the resonator ring. The coupled-in light waves have an intensity t... | 06/21/1994 |
| 5319727 | Ion-beam deposited, gain enhanced ring resonators An optical waveguide is created using the process of ion beam deposition resulting in a waveguide with low propagation loss, mode discrimination, and gain characteristics. The waveguide is made up of a multilayer stack which is deposited upon a thermally ... | 06/07/1994 |
| 5309534 | Optical filter having multiple interferometric stages We describe an interferometric, channel-dropping, optical filter that includes a pair of planar waveguides. The two waveguides are spaced apart by a distance which is periodically varied along the longitudinal axis of the filter in order to effect a perio... | 05/03/1994 |
