US Patent Issued to National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia on July 8 for "Continuously variable optical confinement for optical amplifiers" (New Mexico Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,355,209, issued on July 8, was assigned to National Technology & Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC (Albuquerque, N.M.).

"Continuously variable optical confinement for optical amplifiers" was invented by Erik J. Skogen (Tijeras, N.M.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A semiconductor optical amplifier (SOA) with a variable optical confinement factor I' along the length of the device is disclosed. At the input end of the SOA, the optical confinement is high as an optical core is adjacent an optical gain layer, resulting in a high-gain region that rapidly increases the optical signal power. In the central portion of the SOA, the optical confin...