Patents by Inventor Jeffrey Nicholson

Jeffrey Nicholson 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: 8236375
    Abstract: The specification describes a method for selectively depositing carbon nanotubes on the end face of an optical fiber. The end face of the optical fiber is exposed to a dispersion of carbon nanotubes while light is propagated through the optical fiber. Carbon nanotubes deposit selectively on the light emitting core of the optical fiber.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: October 27, 2006
    Date of Patent: August 7, 2012
    Assignee: OFS Fitel, LLC
    Inventor: Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Publication number: 20100098113
    Abstract: The specification describes a method for selectively depositing carbon nanotubes on the end face of an optical fiber. The end face of the optical fiber is exposed to a dispersion of carbon nanotubes while light is propagated through the optical fiber. Carbon nanotubes deposit selectively on the light emitting core of the optical fiber.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 27, 2006
    Publication date: April 22, 2010
    Inventor: Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Publication number: 20090090614
    Abstract: Described is a method for fractionalizing nanoparticles according to the conductivity of the particle, thus enabling the production of large numbers of particles with uniform conductivity. The method is based on a modified thermophoresis process wherein a temperature gradient is produced in a mixture of particles and the most conductive particles are selectively deposited on a warm surface. In contrast to conventional thermophoresis methods, the temperature gradient that drives the fractionalization process is produced using a light source.
    Type: Application
    Filed: October 9, 2007
    Publication date: April 9, 2009
    Inventors: David J. DiGiovanni, Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Publication number: 20070201880
    Abstract: The specification describes an improved seed laser source for high power MOPA applications. Improvement is obtained by modulating the seed laser with a broadband noise function, for example, a Guassian noise function. A broadband noise function is one in which, in contrast to a sine wave function for example, has an RF spectrum with a bandwidth comparable in value to the mean frequency. Use of a broadband noise modulator allows effective tuning of the output of the modulated laser.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 27, 2006
    Publication date: August 30, 2007
    Inventor: Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Patent number: 7228029
    Abstract: The specification describes an optical fiber device for propagating and recompressing high energy, ultrashort pulses with minimal distortions due to nonlinearity. The device is based on propagation in a higher order mode (HOM) of a few-moded fiber. Coupling into the HOM may be accomplished using long-period gratings. Features of the HOM fiber mode that are useful for high quality pulse compression include large effective area, high dispersion and low dispersion slope. In a preferred case the long period gratings go through a turn-around point (TAP) at the wavelength of operation.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: September 20, 2005
    Date of Patent: June 5, 2007
    Assignee: Furukawa Electric North America Inc.
    Inventors: Siddharth Ramachandran, Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Publication number: 20060251424
    Abstract: An arrangement for generating beat notes with a relatively high signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) utilizes a pulsed laser source coupled into a section of post-processed highly-nonlinear optical fiber (HNLF) to generate a frequency comb having one or more regions of enhanced spectral power. A second laser signal source is overlapped with the frequency comb to form one or more “beat notes” at difference frequencies(y) between the second source and the continuum comb. By virtue of the post-processing, areas of spectral enhancement are formed along the comb, and are positioned to interact with the second laser signal to generate optical beat notes. The second laser signal may be from an external source (forming beat notes from a signal “outside” of the comb), or may be a frequency-multiplied version of the generated supercontinuum (forming beat notes from a signal “within” the comb).
    Type: Application
    Filed: May 3, 2006
    Publication date: November 9, 2006
    Inventors: Jeffrey Nicholson, Paul Westbrook
  • Patent number: 6990270
    Abstract: A source of high-power femtosecond optical pulses comprises a combination of a relatively short rare-earth doped fiber amplifier (e.g., less than five meters) with a first section of single mode fiber (or other dispersive element) disposed at the input of the amplifier to “pre-chirp” the output from a femtosecond pulse source, and a second section of single mode fiber fused to the output of the fiber amplifier to provide compression to the amplified pulses generated by the fiber amplifier. The rare-earth doped fiber amplifier is formed to comprise a normal dispersion, which when combined with self-phase modulation and distributed gain leads to a regime in amplifiers defined as “self-similar propagation”. In this regime of operation, the fiber amplifier generates high energy pulses with a parabolic shape (the parabolic shape defined as a function of time). These pulses also exhibit a strong linear chirp, where the linear nature of the chirp leads to efficient compression of the pulses.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: February 11, 2004
    Date of Patent: January 24, 2006
    Assignee: Fitel U.S.A. Corp.
    Inventor: Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Publication number: 20050226575
    Abstract: Enhancement of the supercontinuum generation performance of a highly-nonlinear optical fiber (HNLF) is accomplished by incorporating at least one Bragg grating structure in the HNLF. The Bragg grating results in reflecting a core-guided signal into signal which also remains core-guided. The supercontinuum radiation generated by such an arrangement will exhibit a substantial peak in its energy at the grating resonance of the Bragg grating and a region of increased radiation in a narrow wavelength band on the long wavelength side of the peak. A number of such Bragg gratings may be formed so as to “tailor” the enhancements provided in the supercontinuum radiation. Various, well-known Bragg grating modifications (tuning, chirped, blazed, etc.) may also be used in the inventive structure to enhance the generated supercontinuum.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 22, 2005
    Publication date: October 13, 2005
    Inventors: Thomas Brown, Kenneth Feder, Yufeng Li, Jeffrey Nicholson, Paul Westbrook
  • Publication number: 20050226576
    Abstract: Enhancement of the supercontinuum generation performance of a highly-nonlinear optical fiber (HNLF) is accomplished by performing at least one post-processing treatment on the HNLF. Particularly, UV exposure of the HNLF will modify its dispersion and effective area characteristics so as to increase its supercontinuum bandwidth, without resorting to techniques such as tapering or introducing unwanted reflections into the HNLF. The UV exposure can be uniform, slowly varying or aperiodic along the length of the HNLF, where the radiation will modify the nonlinear properties of the HNLF. Various other methods of altering these properties may be used. The output from the HNLF can be monitored and used to control the post-processing operation in order to achieve a set of desired features in the enhanced supercontinuum spectrum.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 22, 2005
    Publication date: October 13, 2005
    Inventors: Kenneth Feder, Jeffrey Nicholson, Paul Westbrook
  • Publication number: 20050175280
    Abstract: A source of high-power femtosecond optical pulses comprises a combination of a relatively short rare-earth doped fiber amplifier (e.g., less than five meters) with a first section of single mode fiber (or other dispersive element) disposed at the input of the amplifier to “pre-chirp” the output from a femtosecond pulse source, and a second section of single mode fiber fused to the output of the fiber amplifier to provide compression to the amplified pulses generated by the fiber amplifier. The rare-earth doped fiber amplifier is formed to comprise a normal dispersion, which when combined with self-phase modulation and distributed gain leads to a regime in amplifiers defined as “self-similar propagation”. In this regime of operation, the fiber amplifier generates high energy pulses with a parabolic shape (the parabolic shape defined as a function of time). These pulses also exhibit a strong linear chirp, where the linear nature of the chirp leads to efficient compression of the pulses.
    Type: Application
    Filed: February 11, 2004
    Publication date: August 11, 2005
    Inventor: Jeffrey Nicholson
  • Patent number: 6519654
    Abstract: A method of designing an interface for a messaging system for networks. The method includes the steps of providing a system interface to communicate with an operating system and driver level communication drivers, and using an application interface for transferring payload data between application objects and the system interface. The method could be applied in networks that include both application-level applications and driver-level device drivers.
    Type: Grant
    Filed: July 7, 1999
    Date of Patent: February 11, 2003
    Assignee: Sharp Laboratories of America, Incorporation
    Inventors: Henry Fang, Jeffrey Nicholson