Abstract

Introducing optical amplifiers into practical optical fiber communication systems is now being investigated. In such a situation, an optical circulator becomes a requisite device. A bulk type circulator composed of lumped optical elements, e.g., Faraday rotators and prisms, was developed,¹but the waveguide type circulator, whose basic design was given in Ref. 2, has not yet been made. The nonreciprocal phase shift, which TM inodes undergo while traveling in an in-plane magnetized magnetooptic waveguide, is utilized in this device.

© 1990 Optical Society of America