Patent ID: 9654848
Date: 2017-05-16
CPC Classifications: G02B,H04J,H04Q

Claim:
1. An optical signal manipulation system including: a plurality of ports that carry respective optical beams to be manipulated, each optical beam including a plurality of independent wavelength channels, the ports being divided into a first group of ports that carry a first subset of beams corresponding to a first optical device and a second group of ports that carry a second subset of beams corresponding to a second optical device; a polarizing module for polarizing the first subset of beams into a first polarization state and for polarizing the second subset of beams into a second polarization state orthogonal to the first polarization state; a wavelength dispersion element that spatially separates the plurality of independent wavelength channels of the first and second subsets of beams in the direction of a first dimension to produce a plurality of dispersed wavelength channels; a separation element that spatially separates the plurality of dispersed wavelength channels of the first and second subsets of beams in the direction of a second dimension orthogonal to the first dimension; and a processing device including a series of independent wavelength processing elements that separately process each of the dispersed wavelength channels of the first and second subsets of beams, with wavelength channels of the first subset of beams being processed independently of wavelength channels of the second subset of beams at a location spatially separated in the second dimension.