US 11,990,165 B2
Optical data transfer
Douglas James Kelly, Cambridge (GB); Benn Charles Thomsen, Cambridge (GB); Dushyanth Narayanan, Cambridge (GB); and Antony Ian Taylor Rowstron, Cambridge (GB)
Assigned to Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
Appl. No. 17/905,684
Filed by Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC, Redmond, WA (US)
PCT Filed Mar. 15, 2021, PCT No. PCT/US2021/022269
§ 371(c)(1), (2) Date Sep. 6, 2022,
PCT Pub. No. WO2021/194775, PCT Pub. Date Sep. 30, 2021.
Claims priority of application No. 20165954 (EP), filed on Mar. 26, 2020.
Prior Publication US 2023/0104873 A1, Apr. 6, 2023
Int. Cl. G11B 5/00 (2006.01); G11B 7/0065 (2006.01); G11B 7/135 (2012.01); G11B 7/24044 (2013.01)
CPC G11B 7/24044 (2013.01) [G11B 7/0065 (2013.01); G11B 7/135 (2013.01)] 20 Claims
OG exemplary drawing
 
1. An optical data transfer system comprising:
a beam modulator configured to embed data in an input beam;
an input waveguide network, formed of a multimode optical waveguide, the input waveguide network having an in-coupling region, the input waveguide network configured to guide the input beam to an out-coupling region of the input waveguide network;
a spatial coherent detector configured to measure a phase and an amplitude of an output optical field at multiple locations, the output optical field being at least partially defined by the input beam and thus exhibiting distortion effects caused, at least in part, by passage of the input beam through the input waveguide network; and
a processor coupled to the spatial coherent detector and configured to compensate for the distortion effects using signal processing applied to an output of the spatial coherent detector, and thereby recover, from the output of the spatial coherent detector, the set of data embedded in the input beam, wherein compensating for the distortion effects comprises compensating for distortion effects caused by passage of a reference beam through at least one of a reference waveguide network formed of a further multimode optical waveguide or an input waveguide network.