OPTICAL COMPONENT

摘要

Methods and apparatus for use in coherent transmission and reception of optical data signals. An integrated optics block (100) for use in a coherent optical transmitter comprising: a beam splitter (102) configured to split an input light signal into first and second input light signals, to output the first input light signal for use in an optical transmitter chip and to output the second input light signal for use as a local oscillator signal; a polarisation combiner (104) configured to combine first and second received modulated light signals to form an output; and a polarisation rotator (106) configured to rotate the polarisation of the second modulated light signal such that it is substantially orthogonal to the polarisation of the first modulated light signal prior to combining.