NOVELTY - A refracted light (26) acquired from an incident light (14), is filtered to obtain two perpendicularly polarized light signals (34,38). One of the polarized light (34) is split into two mutually perpendicular polarized signal components (48,50). The intensities of the two polarized signal components and the polarized light (34) are measured to acquire the total intensity, the central frequency and the bandwidth of the test channel.
USE - Optical channel monitor for optical fiber communication system such as wavelength division multiplexing system, dense wavelength division multiplexing system, to analyze incident light containing narrow band signals.
ADVANTAGE - Enables monitoring wavelength channels in communication system by measuring their central frequency, bandwidth and total intensity.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION - An INDEPENDENT CLAIM is also included for an optical filter.
DESCRIPTION OF DRAWING(S) - The figure shows the block diagram of the optical channel monitor.
optical channel monitor (10)
acoustic optic tunable filter (12)
incident light (14)
refracted light (26)
polarized lights (34,38)
birefringent element (36)
polarized signal components (48,50)
photodetectors (58,60,62,64)
