Patent ID: 7555178

Claim:
An optical interleaver, comprising: a first optical filter having a first input port configured to receive first and second optical signals, the first optical filter having a first output that supplies a filtered optical signal; and a second optical filter having a second input port configured to receive the filtered optical signal from the first optical filter, the second optical filter having a second output port that supplies a multiplexed signal, wherein at least one of the first and second optical filters includes an infinite impulse response (IIR) filter and the other one of the first and second optical filters includes a finite-impulse response (FIR) filter, the first optical filter having an associated first dispersion slope, the first dispersion slope having a sign and a magnitude, the second optical filter having an associated second dispersion slope having a sign opposite the sign of the first dispersion slope, and a magnitude of the second dispersion slope is substantially equal to the magnitude of the first dispersion slope.