Abstract: An optical bench that provides a core component for a communication system that performs all of the necessary switching, adding, dropping, and manipulating of optical signals entirely in the optical domain. The optical bench comprises a dispersive optical element and a spatial light modulator. Various devices that are useful in the field of optical communication can be produced using the optical bench apparatus as a core component, with the addition of other components to the optical bench. Exemplary optical communication devices that can be built using the optical bench include optical add/drop multiplexers (OADM), Dense Wavelength Division Multiplexing (DWDM) routers, tunable filters, tunable laser sources, optical cross connects, and the like.

Abstract: Disclosed herein are pultruded articles prepared from a reinforcing material and a polyamide matrix made by the process of impregnating a reinforcing material with a polyamide forming reaction mixture and then pultruding the impregnated reinforcing material through a die while polymerizing the polyamide forming reaction mixture to form a polyamide matrix, wherein the temperature of the material being pultruded is at least about at the lower end of the melting range of the polyamide.

Abstract: A process for the reactive pultrusion of a reinforcing material and a polyamide matrix wherein a reinforcing material is impregnated with a polyamide forming reaction mixture and then pultruded through a die while the polyamide forming reaction mixture is polymerized to form a polyamide matrix, wherein the temperature of the material being pultruded is at least about at the lower end of the melting range of the polyamide.