How Much Do You Know About Optical Circulator?

What is Optical Circulator?

Optical circulator is a non reciprocal device allowing for the routing of light
from one fiber to another based upon the direction of the light propagation. It is
a special fiber optical component that could be used to separate optical signals
in an optical fiber. It usually has at least three ports designed such that light
entering any port exits from the next. With its features of high isolation of the
input and reflected optical powers, as well as its low insertion loss, optical
circulator is widely used in advanced communication systems and fiber optical
sensing applications. 3-port optical circulator is the most commonly used
optical circulator. In a 3-port optical circulator, there are generally two ports
used as input ports and only one port used as output port. Here are some
3-port optical circulator samples shown in the following picture.
Principle of Optical Circulator
Optical circulator, as a passive element is widely used in fiber optical system.
It is usually used to direct the optical signal from one port to another port and
in one direction only. This action prevents the signal from propagating in an
unintended direction. In a 3-port optical

circulator, a signal is transmitted

from port 1 to port 2, another signal is transmitted from port 2 to port 3, finally
a third signal can be transmitted from port 3 to port 1. The following picture
shows us the working principle of the optical circulator with 3 ports.

Main Features of Optical Circulator

High isolation
Low insertion loss
Low polarization dependent loss
Low polarization mode dispersion
Excellent environmental stability
Applications of Optical Circulator
Optical circulator can be utilized to achieve bi-directional optical signal
transmission over a single fiber. It is a very important optical component which
is commonly used in passive optical network, (wavelength division multiplexing)
WDM

network,

polarization

mode

dispersion,

chromatic

dispersion

compensation, optical add-drop modules (OADM), optical amplifiers, optical

time

domain

reflectometry

(OTDR)

and

fiber

sensing

applications. Fibercasa offers 3/4 ports polarization-insensitive optical

circulator and 1310/1550/1064 polarization-maintaining (PM) optical
circulators to satisfy your different applications.
In this blog, we have learnt some basic knowledge of optical circulator. We
know that it is usually used to reduce the overall dispersion of light within a
fiber-optic system. Especially in passive optical network, optical circulator is in
a position to transmit light through the system and use half as much of the
fiber to achieve the desired compensating effect while traveling through the
system. In a word, optical circulator is an efficient means for conveying a light
signal and makes communication systems more convenient and economical.
View: www.fibercasa.com for more information