KVH Introduces ActiveFiber

KVH Industries Inc. of Middletown, R.I., presented its ActiveFiber technology at OFC in Anaheim, Calif. The company said that the first ActiveFiber product would be a 40-Gb/s polarimetric modulator for 1550-nm optical communications.

The technology involves the insertion of chromophore-doped electro-optic polymers into the core of a D-shaped optical fiber. When voltage is applied to the polymer, the polymer's optical characteristics change, creating a phase shift that can be used to encode data in the light passing through the fiber. KVH hopes to develop tunable Bragg gratings, optical switches and in-line amplifiers based on the technology.