| 摘要 |
Multiplexer (1300) includes a plurality of conventional 1 x 8 combiners (131 0- 1 to 1310-10), for example, each having eight inputs receiving a respective one of eight channels. Combiners (1310-1 to 1310-10) can include one or more of the following: dielectric filters, fiber couplers, planar waveguides, arrayed waveguide routers, and appropriate combinations of fiber Bragg gratings and circulators. Combiners (1310-1 to 1310-10) combine the received channels onto corresponding outputs, which are coupled to respective optical attenuators (1312-1 to 1312-9). A series of cascaded combiners, including fo r example optical filter elements (1314-1 to 1314-9), generally receive optica l signal inputs from corresponding optical attenuators (1312-1 to 1314-9), and add these signals to signals input from a preceding optical filter element. In particular, filter element (1314-1) adds channels (.lambda.1 to .lambda.8) received from combiner (1310-1) and channels (.lambda.9 to .lambda.16) outpu t from combiner (1310-2) via attenuator (1312-1). The aggregated channels, channels(.lambda.1 to .lambda.16), are passed to filtering element (1314-2), which adds channels (.lambda.17 to .lambda.24) output from attenuator (1312- 2) thereto. In a similar fashion channel groups (.lambda.25 to .lambda.32, .lambda.33 to .lambda.40, .lambda.41 to .lambda.48, .lambda.56 to .lambda.64 , and .lambda.72 to .lambda.80) are successively added by filters (1314-3 to 1314-9). The final filtering element stage (1314-9) outputs the entire aggregation of channels, ((.lambda.1 to .lambda.80) onto a single output fib er (1316).
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