Patent ID: 9467245
Filing Date: 2016-10-11
CPC Classification: H04B,H04J

Claim Text:
1. A polarization multiplexing optical transceiver configured to transmit/receive polarization multiplexed light, the polarization multiplexing optical transceiver comprising: a polarization multiplexing optical transmitter configured to transmit the polarization multiplexed light as an output optical signal having orthogonal polarization components; a polarization multiplexing optical receiver configured to receive the polarization multiplexed light as a received optical signal; and a transmission side polarization state control unit and a reception side polarization state control unit that are configured to operate independently of each other, wherein the transmission side polarization state control unit is configured to switch, for the polarization multiplexed light to be transmitted by the polarization multiplexing optical transmitter, the polarization multiplexing optical transmitter to one of a polarization multiplexing transmission state in which both of the polarization components of the output optical signal have been modulated by respective independent multilevel signals and the output optical signal is multiplexed, and a single polarization transmission state in which only one of the polarization components of the output optical signal has been modulated by the independent multilevel information signals, wherein the reception side polarization state control unit is configured to switch, for the polarization multiplexed light to be received by the polarization multiplexing optical receiver, the polarization multiplexing optical receiver to one of a polarization multiplexing reception state in which both of the polarization components of the received optical signal have been modulated by the respective independent multilevel information signals and multiplexed, and a single polarization reception state in which only one of the polarization components of the received optical signal has been modulated by the independent multilevel information signals, wherein the polarization multiplexing optical receiver includes: wherein the polarization multiplexing optical receiver is further configured to control, when in the single polarization reception state, the polarization demultiplexing unit and at least one of the plurality of information signal reconstruction units to transition to a power saving mode.