Patent ID: 8531756

Claim:
An optical processing device, comprising: a plurality of optical ports; a dispersion element for spatially dispersing an optical beam received from the optical ports into a plurality of wavelength components; a lens arrangement for focusing the wavelength components received from the dispersion element; an optical path conversion system for receiving the focused plurality of wavelength components from the lens arrangement and selectively directing at least one of the wavelength components to one of the optical ports, said optical path conversion system including a digital micromirror device (DMD) from which at least one wavelength component is reflected at least twice before being directed to a selected one of the optical ports, said DMD performing optical processing on the wavelength component when it is reflected from the DMD a first or second time; and an optical path length compensator for adjusting an optical path length traversed by the wavelength component selectively directed to one of the optical ports to improve the optical processing performed on the wavelength component.