OPTICAL POWER SPLITTER WITH ELECTRICALLY-CONTROLLED SWITCHING STRUCTURES

摘要

A new class of optical energy transfer devices (11) and energy guiding devices uses an electric field to control energy propagation using a class of poled structures (36, 38) in solid material. The poled structures (36, 38), which may form gratings in thin film or bulk configurations, may be combined with waveguide structures. Electric fields applied to the poled structures through electrodes (24, 26) control routing of optical energy. Devices include splitters, parallel and Y couplers, mode converters and energy leakage attenuators.