To allow substantially uniform modulation of unpolarized light.
The unpolarized light made incident on a modulation unit 32 from a light source 12 via a circulator 16 is split into two beams, each beam comprising an orthogonal TE or TM mode, by a polarization beam splitter/combiner (PBSC) 20. The beam in the TE mode is modulated by the modulator 28 via an optical pathway 22, the mode of the beam is changed by a splice 30 via an optical pathway 24, then, the beam is returned to the PBSC via an optical pathway 26. The beam in the TM mode is mode-changed by the splice via the optical pathway 26, then, the beam is modulated by the modulator via the optical pathway 24, then, returned to the PBSC via the optical pathway 22. The PBSC combines the two returned beams to form a multi-mode beam, which is outputted from an output 36 through the circulator.
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| JPH0627357 | OPTICAL DEVICE |
Kazuo Shamoto
Yasushi Kobayashi
Akio Chiba
Hiroyuki Tomita
Otsuka Sumie