Patent ID: 6167174
Filing Date: 2000-12-26
Classification: G02B,G02F

Abstract:
An isolator system for coupling to a plurality of optical fibers, comprising:first and second coupling modules couplable to the plurality of optical fibers to receive light beams therefrom, each coupling module including:a first focusing element positioned on a module optical axis having a first focusing power selected to direct the light beams to intersect the module optical axis, anda second focusing element spaced apart from the first focusing element by an interelement separation distance along the module optical axis and positioned to receive the light beams from the first focusing element, the second focusing element having a second focusing power, the interelement separation distance being selected to parallelize the light beams received from the first focusing element; andan isolator module positioned between the two coupling modules;wherein a first beam path of at least one of the parallelized beams from the first coupling module passes in a forward direction through the isolator module and couples light into a second beam path of a parallelized beam of the second coupling module, and light passing from the second coupling module backwards along the second beam path towards the first coupling module is prevented from passing to the first coupling module backwards along the first beam path by the isolator module.