MULTI-FIBER RIBBON FORM FACTOR-COMPLIANT, INTEGRATED MULTI-CHANNEL OPTICAL AMPLIFIER

摘要

A multi-fiber ribbon-coupled multi-channel, optical amplifier architecture has a very compact form factor that facilitates one-for-one alignment with and coupling to each optical fiber of a multi-fiber ribbon. A physically compact, focusing and coupling structure couples into respective light amplifying wavelength channels of a substrate, to which the fibers of the multi-fiber ribbon are coupled, the optical pumping energy emitted by multiple pumping energy sources that are arranged transverse to the optical waveguide amplifying channels. The pumping energy coupling structure may include a prism, GRIN lens array or a spherical lenslet array. The number of GRIN lenses or lenslets corresponds to the number of pumping source elements.