Patents by Inventor Nils Otterstrom

Nils Otterstrom has filed for patents to protect the following inventions. This listing includes patent applications that are pending as well as patents that have already been granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).

  • Patent number: 11652330
    Abstract: An optical amplifier device employing a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) that reduces the amount of residual pump power in the optical output of the amplifier is disclosed. The MZI amplifier employs two geometrically linear optical amplifier arms or two multi-spatial-mode racetrack optical amplifiers to amplify a signal with a pumping beam, with the signal output port having extremely low levels of residual pump power. The MZI optical amplifier is a silicon photonic integrated circuit, with all optical amplifiers, couplers, phase shifters, and optical attenuators formed of silicon photonic integrated circuit elements. The MZI optical amplifier may include one, two, or three MZI stages, and multiple MZI optical amplifiers may be used in parallel or sequentially to achieve higher overall signal gain or power. The MZI optical amplifier may employ Brillouin-scattering-based amplifiers, Raman-based integrated waveguide optical amplifiers, or Erbium-doped integrated waveguide optical amplifiers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: November 16, 2020
    Date of Patent: May 16, 2023
    Assignees: National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia, LLC, Yale University
    Inventors: Anthony L. Lentine, Michael Gehl, Peter Rakich, Shai Gertler, Nils Otterstrom
  • Patent number: 11378741
    Abstract: Devices and systems for opto-acoustic signal processing are described herein. In one embodiment, the device may include a structure configured to laterally confine travelling acoustic phonons (hypersound) throughout, a first multimode optical waveguide embedded within the structure, and an acoustic phonon emitter within the structure, where the first multimode optical waveguide is selected to couple to the acoustic phonons (hypersound) confined within the structure. In one embodiment, the system may include a first light source optically coupled to a proximal end of the first multimode optical waveguide, the first light source emitting a probe wave having a frequency ?p(1), and a driver configured to drive the acoustic phonon emitter to emit acoustic phonons (hypersound).
    Type: Grant
    Filed: August 9, 2019
    Date of Patent: July 5, 2022
    Assignee: YALE UNIVERSITY
    Inventors: Eric Kittlaus, Nils Otterstrom, Prashanta Kharel, Shai Gertler, Peter Rakich
  • Publication number: 20200050030
    Abstract: Devices and systems for opto-acoustic signal processing are described herein. In one embodiment, the device may include a structure configured to laterally confine travelling acoustic phonons (hypersound) throughout, a first multimode optical waveguide embedded within the structure, and an acoustic phonon emitter within the structure, where the first multimode optical waveguide is selected to couple to the acoustic phonons (hypersound) confined within the structure. In one embodiment, the system may include a first light source optically coupled to a proximal end of the first multimode optical waveguide, the first light source emitting a probe wave having a frequency ?p(1), and a driver configured to drive the acoustic phonon emitter to emit acoustic phonons (hypersound).
    Type: Application
    Filed: August 9, 2019
    Publication date: February 13, 2020
    Inventors: Eric Kittlaus, Nils Otterstrom, Prashanta Kharel, Shai Gertler, Peter Rakich