Optical transmitter with the signal light of reduced degree of polarization and optical depolarizing circuit

摘要

An optical transmitter for providing a signal light with a reduced degree of polarization, the transmitter being used as a transmitting terminal of an optical repeater system that encompasses optical amplifiers at a signal light transmitter, the optical transmitter includes an optical source for transmitting a signal light source; and a degree of polarization reducing circuit including a polarizing beam splitter splitting the signal light source from the optical source means into a first polarized component and a second polarized component that are orthogonal to each other; a first optical path transmitting the first polarized component input from the polarizing beam splitter while maintaining the polarization plane of the first polarized component; a second optical path, which is spatially separate from the first optical path, transmitting the second polarized component input from the polarizing beam splitter while maintaining the polarization plane of the second polarized component; and a polarizing beam mixer mixing the first polarized component and the second polarized component that were transmitted over the first optical path and the second optical path, respectively; the length A1 of the first optical path and the length A2 of the second optical path satisfying the equation |A2xn2-A1xn1|>/=0.22 DIVIDED DELTA vxC where n1 is the refractive index of the first optical path, n2 is the refractive index of the second optical path, DELTA v is the line width of the signal light source, and C is light velocity.