Small-sized integrated optical assembly for high-speed BOSA device
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical fields of optical communication and 5G, in particular to a small integrated optical assembly for a high-speed BOSA device.
Background
With the year 2019 being determined as the primordial year of 5G commercial start, the 5G era has come, the deployment of 5G networks on a large scale has evolved well, and 5G communications are expected to spread rapidly in the next few years. As known, in the 5G carrier network, the single fiber bi-directional (BiDi) scheme is a key optical transceiver module technical scheme, and compared with the dual fiber bi-directional scheme, the single fiber bi-directional (BiDi) scheme not only saves half of optical fiber resources, but also can meet application scenarios with higher requirement on up-down time delay symmetry. With the development of 5G networks on a global scale, it is expected that the market will show explosive growth in the demand for optical transceiver modules, especially for BiDi high-speed optical transceiver modules, up to millions.
BOSA (Bi-directional Optical Sub-Assembly), also known as a single-fiber Bi-directional optical transceiver subassembly, is the core device in a BiDi optical transceiver module. In the existing BOSA devices, two technical schemes are mainly implemented by using Wavelength Division Multiplexing (WDM) with different wavelengths, and the other is implemented by combining the same (or different) wavelengths with a circulator, wherein schematic diagrams are shown in fig. 1 and 2, and compared with the circulator scheme, the WDM scheme is suggested in the industry.
For a high-speed (25 Gb/s or more) BOSA device adopting a WDM scheme, a typical optical path structure is shown in FIG. 3, and mainly comprises a transmitting end Laser (LD) and a coupling component, an optical isolator, a 45-degree beam splitter, a band-pass filter, a receiving end Photodiode (PD) and a coupling component, and a public end optical fiber core-inserting component, wherein a transmission light beam in the optical path is usually a non-collimated light beam. The optical isolator, the 45-degree optical splitting sheet and the band-pass filter are three key optical elements in a BOSA optical path, wherein the isolator is used for isolating reflected light in a BOSA optical path and preventing the reflected light from returning to a transmitting end to interfere with a light source, which is indispensable in high-speed BOSA, the 45-degree optical splitting sheet does not have polarization correlation and is used for separating a transmitting signal lambda 1 and a receiving signal lambda 2, one path of the optical splitting sheet transmits and one path of the optical splitting sheet is reflected, the WDM function is realized, and the band-pass filter is arranged in front of a receiving end and is used for isolating noise signals except the receiving signal lambda 2 and reducing crosstalk. In such a typical optical path structure, a 45-degree spectroscopic plate is the most critical element for realizing the WDM function, and when the wavelength interval Δλ= |λ1- λ2| of the transmitted signal and the received signal is greater than or equal to 40nm, such as λ1=1270 nm, λ2=1310 nm, the 45-degree spectroscopic plate is difficult to manufacture but can be mass-produced, whereas when the wavelength interval is less than 15nm, such as λ1=1296 nm, λ2=1309 nm, the bandwidth of the transmitted and received signal wavelengths and the non-polarization dependence of the received signal wavelengths (note: the spectral separation of the S-polarized light and the P-polarized light is large at 45-degree incidence) are considered, and the incident angle is required to satisfy a large tolerance to accommodate the non-collimated optical path, the difficulty of film plating of the 45-degree spectroscopic plate is high, the yield is low, which results in high cost and low mass-production feasibility of BOSA.
In summary, we can see that the BOSA optical path structure based on the WDM scheme in the prior art has the application scenarios of mutually separated optical elements, complicated assembly and debugging, difficult miniaturization in size, high cost, and difficult realization of short wavelength interval between transmitting and receiving signals by the 45-degree optical filter.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the situation of the prior art, the invention aims to provide a small-sized integrated optical component for a high-speed BOSA device, which has the advantages of small structure, integration, easiness in manufacturing and mass production, low cost, excellent performance, high reliability and the like.
In order to achieve the technical purpose, the invention adopts the following technical scheme:
A small-sized integrated optical assembly for a high-speed BOSA device comprises a polaroid, a first optical filter, a half wave plate, a Faraday rotator and a polarization beam splitter which are sequentially attached;
A quarter wave plate and a reflecting mirror are sequentially attached to one side surface of the polarization beam splitter adjacent to the Faraday rotator;
and a second optical filter is also attached to the other side surface of the polarization beam splitter adjacent to the Faraday rotation plate.
Wherein, the scheme refers to
The polaroid is an absorption polaroid, and the transmission direction of the polaroid is parallel to the polarization direction of the laser at the transmitting end;
The first optical filter is a band-pass optical filter, the incident light is incident at a small angle close to 0 DEG, the optical filter can realize high transmittance of the wavelength signals input by the transmitting end, and meanwhile, the input signals of the public end are isolated by high reflectivity;
the half wave plate is of a single half wave plate or combined half wave plate structure, and the optical axis of the half wave plate forms an included angle of 22.5 degrees with the polarization direction of incident light;
The polarizing beam splitter is formed by combining and fixing two 45-degree right-angle prisms, wherein one of the right-angle prisms is coated with a polarizing beam splitter film, the combining mode adopts gluing or optical glue, and if the gluing is adopted, the glue used for the gluing comprises one or more of UV glue, thermosetting glue, dual-curing glue and the like;
the quarter wave plate is a single quarter wave plate or a combined quarter wave plate structure, and the optical axis direction of the quarter wave plate forms an included angle of 45 degrees with the polarization direction of incident light;
The reflector is a polished glass sheet with one surface plated with a high-reflection dielectric film or a metal film;
The second optical filter is a bandpass optical filter, the incident light is incident at an incident angle close to 0 DEG, the optical filter can realize high transmittance to the input signal of the public terminal, and meanwhile, the input signal of the transmitting terminal is isolated by high reflectivity;
the above elements are glued together in a certain order.
The glued assembly forms a free space isolator structure which has the function of isolating the transmitting end signal and the common end input signal which are reversely transmitted at the same time;
Preferably, the second optical filter, the polarization beam splitter, the quarter wave plate and the reflecting mirror are sequentially glued together from bottom to top, and the second optical filter, the polarization beam splitter, the half wave plate and the first optical filter are glued on the left side of the polarization beam splitter together to realize the polarization beam splitting and the light combining functions of the unpolarized light signals input by the public terminal;
preferably, the glue used for gluing in the optical component comprises one or more of UV glue, thermosetting glue, dual-curing glue and the like;
Furthermore, in order to reduce the insertion loss, the interface reflection loss can be reduced or eliminated by adopting a method of plating an anti-reflection film on a gluing interface through which an optical path passes according to different refractive indexes of materials, and if the refractive index of the glue is close to that of the material of the optical element after the glue is solidified, the anti-reflection film is not required to be plated;
As a possible implementation manner, the faraday rotator is a 45-degree self-magnetic faraday rotator or an externally-magnetic faraday rotator, and when the faraday rotator is an externally-magnetic faraday rotator, a magnetic field generating device is arranged on the outer periphery of the faraday rotator.
As one possible implementation manner, the polarizing beam splitter is formed by attaching and fixing two inclined planes of 45-degree right-angle prisms into a whole, and a polarizing beam splitting film is arranged between the attached inclined planes.
As a preferable option, preferably, the polarizing beam splitter is formed by bonding and fixing the inclined planes of two 45-degree right-angle prisms together through gluing, optical cement or deepening optical cement.
As a possible implementation manner, the reflecting mirror is a high-reflection dielectric film formed by plating or a polished glass sheet with a metal film.
As a possible implementation manner, further, the end surface of the polarizing plate far from the first optical filter forms an emitting end, the end surface of the second optical filter far from the polarizing beam splitter forms a receiving end, and the end surface of the polarizing beam splitter far from the faraday rotator forms a common end.
Further, in order to reduce the insertion loss of the input/output signals, an anti-reflection film is plated on the receiving end, the transmitting end and the common end of the optical component.
As a preferred option, preferably, an LD component is arranged at one side of the transmitting end, a first coupling component is further arranged between the LD component and the polaroid, a PD component is arranged at one side of the receiving end, a second coupling component is further arranged between the PD component and the polarization beam splitter, and an optical fiber core inserting component is arranged at one side of the common end.
Preferably, the first coupling component and the second coupling component are collimating lenses.
As a preferred option, the transmitting end, the receiving end and the public end are all provided with wedge angle pieces.
As an implementation variant, the half-wave plate and the faraday rotator may be interchanged in position or the half-wave plate and the first filter may be interchanged in position.
According to the scheme, the combination of two 0-degree (small-angle) incident optical filters and the polarization beam splitting element can be adopted, so that the single-fiber bidirectional (BiDi) function to be realized by the BOSA requiring the 45-degree optical filters in the prior art is realized, and the manufacturing difficulty of the optical filters is greatly reduced. Especially in BOSA with high speed long distance (speed: 25Gb/S, distance 40 km), in order to reduce the delay difference caused by chromatic dispersion, the wavelength spacing between the transmitting end and the receiving end needs to be as small as possible, in this case, the non-polarization dependent 45-degree optical filter is manufactured, because the S-polarization and P-polarization spectrum separation is large, and the incident angle needs to meet a large tolerance to adapt to the non-collimation optical path, the existing film plating technology is difficult to realize, and for the optical filter near 0 degree (small angle) incidence, the existing film plating technology is much easier.
Compared with the prior art, the invention integrates the functions of an isolator, an optical filter, polarized light splitting and light combining into a whole, thereby not only realizing small integration and greatly saving the material cost and the light path adjustment difficulty, but also needing not to greatly change the existing BOSA structure, and realizing the single-fiber bidirectional (BiDi) function of the BOSA which needs 45-degree optical filters in the prior art by adopting the combination of two 0-degree incident optical filters and the polarized light splitting element, and greatly reducing the manufacturing difficulty and the cost of the optical filters. Compared with the layout of the separated optical element in the traditional BOSA, the technical scheme integrates the functions of an isolator, a light splitting sheet, polarization light splitting and light combining into a whole, achieves small integration, greatly saves material cost and light path adjustment difficulty, and has the advantages of easiness in processing and mass production, low cost, excellent performance, high reliability and the like.
Drawings
The invention will be further elucidated with reference to the drawings and the detailed description below:
Fig. 1 is a diagram showing one of the technical solutions in the prior BiDi optical transceiver module;
FIG. 2 is a second embodiment of the BiDi optical transceiver module;
FIG. 3 is a typical optical path structure in a high-speed BOSA device employing a WDM scheme;
FIG. 4 is a schematic view of a three-dimensional perspective of an embodiment of the present invention;
FIG. 5 is one of the optical path diagrams of an embodiment of the present invention, showing a propagation of an optical signal from a transmitting end to a common end;
FIG. 6 is a second schematic diagram of an optical path of an embodiment of the present invention, showing propagation of an optical signal from a common end to a receiving end;
FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of an embodiment of the present invention, which is a non-collimated light path;
FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a second embodiment of the present invention, which is a collimated light path;
Fig. 9 is a schematic diagram of an optical module according to the present invention, in which wedge angles are added to a transmitting end, a common end and a receiving end.
Detailed Description
As shown in one of fig. 4 to 6, the miniaturized integrated optical module for a high-speed BOSA device of the present invention includes a polarizer 1, a first optical filter 2, a half-wave plate 3, a faraday rotator 4 and a polarization beam splitter 5, which are sequentially attached;
a quarter wave plate 6 and a reflecting mirror 7 are sequentially attached to one side surface of the polarization beam splitter 5 adjacent to the Faraday rotator 4;
the second optical filter 8 is further attached to the other side surface of the polarization beam splitter 5 adjacent to the faraday rotator 4.
The scheme structure is provided with three input/output ports, which correspond to a transmitting end, a public end and a receiving end of the BOSA device respectively.
Wherein, the end surface of the polaroid 1 far away from the first optical filter 2 forms an emitting end, the end surface of the second optical filter 8 far away from the polarization beam splitter 5 forms a receiving end, and the end surface of the polarization beam splitter 5 far away from the Faraday rotator 4 forms a common end.
In addition, the polarizer 1 mentioned in this scheme is an absorption polarizer, the transmission direction of which is parallel to the polarization direction of the laser at the transmitting end, the first optical filter 2 is a bandpass filter, the incident light is incident at a small angle close to 0 degree, the first optical filter 2 can achieve high transmittance of the input wavelength signal at the transmitting end, and at the same time, the high reflectivity isolates the input signal at the public end, the half-wave plate 3 is a single half-wave plate or a combined half-wave plate structure, the optical axis of which forms an included angle of 22.5 degrees with the incident light, the faraday rotator 4 is a 45-degree faraday rotator with magnetic field or an externally applied magnetic field, when the faraday rotator is an externally applied magnetic field, the periphery side of the faraday rotator is provided with a magnetic field generating device, the polarizing beam splitter 5 is integrally attached and fixed by two right-angle prisms, one right-angle prism is coated with a polarizing beam splitting film, the attaching mode of which adopts gluing or optical glue, the quarter-wave plate 6 is a single quarter-wave plate or a combined quarter-wave plate structure, the optical axis of which forms an included angle of 45 degrees with the polarization direction of the incident light, the reflecting mirror 7 is a surface polished with a high-reflection film or a metal film, and at the same time, the incident light can achieve high transmittance of the incident signal near to the transmitting end, and the high reflectivity of the incident signal is achieved, and the incident light is input to the high-end, and the incident light has high incident light transmittance, and high incident light signal, and high reflection efficiency, and at the optical film 8, and at the high-end, and the optical efficiency, and the optical device and the device and near public end.
The working principle of the structure of the scheme is as follows:
Referring to fig. 5, an optical path schematic diagram from an emission end to a public end is shown in this embodiment, an emission end optical signal λ1 (center wavelength is 1295.56 nm) is P polarized light, a polarization direction is parallel to a paper surface, the optical signal is incident into a polarizer 1 with a transmission direction parallel to the P polarized direction and passes through a high transmittance, and then enters a first optical filter 2, the first optical filter 2 has a high transmittance for the emission end optical signal λ1, after passing through the first optical filter 2, the optical signal is incident into a half-wave plate 3, an included angle of-22.5 degrees is formed between an optical axis of the half-wave plate 3 and an X axis, after passing through the half-wave plate 3, the polarization direction of the optical signal is clockwise rotated 45 degrees relative to the P polarized light, and forms an included angle of-45 degrees with the X axis, then enters a 45-degree faraday rotator 4, after passing through the rotator, the optical signal is anticlockwise rotated 45 degrees, and then enters a polarization splitter 5, the polarization splitter 5 transmits (S polarized light) the P polarized light, and the optical signal enters the public end.
In this optical path, the polarizing plate 1, the half-wave plate 3, the faraday rotation plate 4, and the polarizing beam splitter 5 constitute an isolator structure that isolates the forward direction by reverse direction, and this structure has a function of isolating the transmitting-side signal and the common-side input signal transmitted in reverse direction at the same time.
As shown in fig. 6, which shows a schematic diagram of an optical path from a public end to a receiving end in this embodiment, an optical signal λ2 (center wavelength is 1309.14 nm) output from the public end is unpolarized light, and is split into S polarized light and P polarized light after being incident on the polarization beam splitter 5, wherein:
For S light, the S light is reflected upwards to turn to 90 degrees after passing through the polarization beam splitter 5, then enters the quarter wave plate, the optical axis of the quarter wave plate forms an included angle of 45 degrees with the polarization direction of the S light, the S polarized light is changed into circularly polarized light after passing through the quarter wave plate 6, then enters the reflecting mirror 7, the reflecting surface of the reflecting mirror 7 is arranged on one side opposite to the air, the light signal returns from the original path after being reflected by the reflecting mirror 7, passes through the quarter wave plate 6 again, the circularly polarized light is changed into P polarized light, then is injected again and completely penetrates through the polarization beam splitter 5, then enters the second optical filter 8, the second optical filter 8 has high transmittance to the public end output light signal lambda 2, and the light signal enters the receiving end after passing through the second optical filter 8.
For P light, the P light is observed from left to right, directly passes through the polarization beam splitter, enters the 45-degree Faraday rotation plate 4, passes through the Faraday rotation plate 4, and then rotates anticlockwise by 45 degrees to form an included angle with the X axis, then enters the half wave plate 3, the included angle between the optical axis of the half wave plate 3 and the X axis is-22.5 degrees, after passing through the half wave plate 3, the polarization direction of the P light becomes parallel to the S light of the Y axis, then the S light enters the filter film of the first filter 2, because the filter film of the first filter 2 is a high reflection film for an incident light signal lambda 2 at a public end, the light signal is reflected and returns along an original path to pass through the half wave plate 3 and the 45-degree Faraday rotation plate 4 again, the polarization state of the S light is respectively rotated anticlockwise by 135 degrees and 45 degrees, namely, at the moment, the polarization state of the S light is still reflected and enters the polarization beam splitter 5 again, the light signal is reflected downwards to turn 90 degrees, and enters the second filter 8, the second filter 8 has high transmittance, and the light signal lambda 2 enters the receiving end after passing through the second filter 8.
In order to achieve the aplanatism of S light and P light beam splitting and beam combining, the method is simple and does not introduce extra cost by designing the thickness of the glass sheet of the processing reflector.
The structure of this embodiment is not the only structure, but the positions of the half-wave plate 3 and the faraday rotator 4 can be interchanged, so that the positions of the half-wave plate 3 and the first optical filter 2 can be interchanged, and any performance of the component is not affected.
In the embodiment, the isolator function, the polarization beam splitting and combining function and the reflection isolation function of the two band-pass filters on irrelevant noise signals are integrated, so that the whole optical assembly has very good low crosstalk index.
In this embodiment, in order to reduce insertion loss, in the glued interface through which the optical path passes, according to the difference of refractive indexes of materials, a method of plating an anti-reflection film is used to reduce or eliminate interface reflection loss, if the refractive index of the solidified glue is close to that of the material of the optical element, the anti-reflection film is not required to be plated, and in order to reduce insertion loss of input/output signals, the input/output ports of the optical component are all plated with the anti-reflection film. Thus, the entire optical assembly has a very good low insertion loss.
In this embodiment, if the incident light signal at the transmitting end is S light, compared with the foregoing structure, only the transmission direction of the polarizer 1 needs to be rotated by 90 degrees, the counterclockwise included angle between the optical axis of the half-wave plate 3 and the polarization direction of the S light is 22.5 degrees, and the incident signal S light is changed into P light after passing through the half-wave plate 3 and the 45-degree faraday rotation plate 4, so that the same function can be achieved, and the working principle is not repeated here.
The application structure of the invention is briefly described as follows:
Application example 1
As shown in fig. 7, the optical module structure adopted in this application example is identical to that described above, namely, the polarizing plate 1, the first optical filter 2, the half-wave plate 3, the faraday rotator 4, the polarizing beam splitter 5, the quarter-wave plate 6, the reflecting mirror 7 and the second optical filter 8 are identical to that described above, in this application example, the emitting end is composed of a laser 11 (laser diode, LD) and a coupling lens 12, the coupling lens 12 is separate from or packaged with the laser, the outgoing light of the emitting end is polarized light, the common end is the optical fiber ferrule module 51, the outgoing light of the common end is unpolarized light, uncollimated light, and the receiving end is composed of a photodiode 81 (PD) and a coupling lens 82, and the coupling lens is separate from or packaged with the photodiode. At this time, the transmitted beam in the optical assembly is a non-collimated beam.
Application example 2
As shown in fig. 8, the optical component structure adopted in this application example is identical to that described above, that is, the polarizing plate 1, the first optical filter 2, the half-wave plate 3, the faraday rotator 4, the polarizing beam splitter 5, the quarter-wave plate 6, the reflecting mirror 7, and the second optical filter 8 are identical to that described above, in this application example, the emitting end is composed of the LD 11 and the collimator lens group 12, the collimator lens 12 is separate or packaged with the laser, the outgoing light of the emitting end is polarized light, the common end is composed of the optical fiber ferrule assembly 51 and the collimator lens, the outgoing light of the common end is unpolarized light, the uncollimated light, the receiving end is composed of the PD 81 and the coupling lens 82, and the coupling lens 82 is separate or packaged with the photodiode. At this time, the transmission beam in the optical assembly is a collimated beam.
The most typical application of the embodiment is in BOSA with 5G back transmission of 50Gb/s, 40km distance and wavelength of 1295.56nm/1309.14nm, and the index completely meets the requirements of an optical transceiver for high-speed and long-distance transmission.
Referring to fig. 9, in addition to the design scheme of the present invention, in order to improve the Return Loss (RL) performance of the circulator, a small-angle wedge 9 with the same angle can be added to each of the transmitting end, the common end and the receiving port of the present invention through the process of gluing or optical bonding, and at this time, the incident beam and the end face are not 90 degrees, so that the RL performance can be improved.
In addition to the design scheme of the invention, in order to improve the Return Loss (RL) performance of the circulator, the incident surface and the bottom surface of the integral structure can be processed into a relationship other than 90 degrees.
It should be noted that, each optical element in the optical assembly of the present invention may be pre-processed into a strip according to an optimal length, then each strip is aligned, no complicated adjustment and alignment are required, then the strips are assembled and integrated together by using a gluing process, and finally the strips are cut into a plurality of finished products, which greatly reduces the cost of assembly and processing, and is easy for mass production.
The size of the small integrated optical component can be smaller than 1mm, and the small integrated structure is beneficial to greatly reducing the material cost and meeting the requirements of a miniature BOSA device on a miniature optical element in the future.
While the invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and details may be made therein without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention as defined by the appended claims.