OPTICAL CROSS CONNECT SWITCH

摘要

An optical cross connect switch includes beam generating (100), beam directing (200), and beam receiving portions (300). The beam generating portion (100) receives a number of optical fibers (104) and creates a communication beam (114) for each fiber and an un-modulated companion alignment beam (116) corresponding to each communication beam (114). The beam directing portion (200) includes a first beam director (202) and a second beam director (204), with each director having an array of beam-directing elements (206, 208, 209, 212). Each communication beam (114) and its corresponding alignment beam (116) strikes a beam directing element (208) on the first beam director (202), and are re-directed to a beam directing element (204) on the second beam director (204). From the second beam director (204), the two beams (114, 116) propagate towards beam receiving portion (330) with each beam striking a separate lenslet (310). One lenslet focuss the communications beam onto an output fiber (304), and another lenslet focusses the alignment beam onto a position sensor (336). Using the position information from the position sensor, the beam directing elements are finely adjusted to direct the focussed communication beam onto the end of an optical output fiber (304).