DETAILED ACTION
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 102
The following is a quotation of the appropriate paragraphs of 35 U.S.C. 102 that form the basis for the rejections under this section made in this Office action:
A person shall be entitled to a patent unless –
(a)(1) the claimed invention was patented, described in a printed publication, or in public use, on sale, or otherwise available to the public before the effective filing date of the claimed invention.
Claim(s) 1-6 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by U.S. PGPub 2022/0341760 A1 by Fischer et al.
Regarding claim 1, Fischer teaches a device comprising: a linear series of N optical switches (five MZIs as illustrated in Fig. 2, between an input side near an optical source 10 and an output side near an output coupler 30, inside an optical shaper 20); N-1 pairs of waveguides (a pair of waveguides for each of five MZIs inside the shaper 20) wherein each pair of waveguides of the N-1 pairs of waveguides is disposed between a predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches and a sequential optical switch of the N optical switches to the predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches (each of the five MZIs is comprises a pair of waveguides); and an optical waveguide coupled to the output of the final optical switch of the N optical switches (an optical waveguide connecting a final MZI/ switch to the output coupler 30); wherein each pair of waveguides comprises: a waveguide (the five MZIs are formed in an inverted “U” shape, respective waveguides located on the inside of the “U” shape, which are of equal or shorter length of the pair of waveguides of the five MZIs) coupled from an output port of the associated predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches and an input port of the associated sequential optical switch of the N optical switches; and another waveguide (respective waveguides located on the outside of the U shape or having equal or longer length of the pair of waveguides of the five MZIs) from another output of the predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches and another input of the associated sequential optical switch of the N optical switches introducing a predetermined delay (as results of extra lengths of the outside waveguides of each of the pair of waveguides of the five MZIs) to optical signals propagating within the another waveguide relative to those optical signals propagating within the waveguide; the predetermined delays for the N-1 pair of waveguides are 2M∙T, where M=0,1…N-1 and T is a defined delay; and N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 3 (as stated in ¶[0033], where, for example, the first three delays of the first three pair of waveguides, i.e., N is 1 to 3, are Δη1, 2xΔτ1, and 4xΔτ1).
Regarding claim 2, Fischer further teaches the optical waveguide supports four-wave mixing of the optical signals propagating within it (¶[0030]).
Regarding claim 3, Fischer further teaches the optical waveguide supports four-wave mixing of the optical signals propagating within it; and the linear series of N optical switches, the N-1 pairs of waveguides and optical waveguide are monolithically integrated (the five MZIs may be integrated on a common substrate, Fig. 5a).
Regarding claim 4, Fischer further teaches each optical switch of the linear series of N optical switches is controllable to at least a first switch state to couple the optical signals one of to or from the waveguide and a second switch state to couple the optical signals one of to or from the another waveguide (e.g., 0, where all light remains in one path, and 1, when all light couples over to another path, and the split-ratio of the pulse splitter is controlled using for example directional couplers with heater electrodes, ¶[0026]); and the linear series of N optical switches under appropriate control can establish propagation of the optical signals through a defined subset of the another waveguides of the N-1 another waveguides of the N-1 pairs of waveguides (i.e., allows light to travel from the input, through the five MZIs, to the output).
Regarding claim 5, Fischer further teaches the optical waveguide is a spiral waveguide (¶[0052]).
Regarding claim 6, Fischer further teaches each optical switch of the linear series of N optical switches is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (as illustrated in Fig. 2 and stated in ¶[0046]).
Claim(s) 7-9 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 102(a)(1) as being anticipated by "On-chip generation of high-dimensional entangled quantum states and their coherent control" by Kues et al.
Regarding claim 7, Kues teaches a method comprising: coupling an optical pulse (pulsed laser, Fig. 1) to an optical device to generate a series of optical pulses; and coupling the series of optical pulses generated by the optical device to an optical waveguide (micro-ring resonator) within which spontaneous four-wave mixing of the series of optical pulses occurs to generate signal quantum d-ary bits (qudits) and idler qudits; wherein d ≥ 2 (see at least Figs. 2, 4 and description).
Regarding claim 8, Kues further teaches coupling the generated qudits to two or more users where each user accesses a different frequency channel through a demultiplexing scheme applied to the generated qudits (see Fig. 1 and description, where the Idler and Signal photons to a frequency distribution and two different frequency modes are routed to two different single photon detectors).
Regarding claim 9, Kues further teaches coupling the generated qudits to a demultiplexer wherein each output of the demultiplexer represents a different frequency channel and is coupled to an optical link to provide the generated qudits to receiver at a distal end of the optical link (see Fig. 1 and description, where the Idler and Signal photons to a frequency distribution and two different frequency modes are routed to two different single photon detectors).
Claim Rejections - 35 USC § 103
The following is a quotation of 35 U.S.C. 103 which forms the basis for all obviousness rejections set forth in this Office action:
A patent for a claimed invention may not be obtained, notwithstanding that the claimed invention is not identically disclosed as set forth in section 102, if the differences between the claimed invention and the prior art are such that the claimed invention as a whole would have been obvious before the effective filing date of the claimed invention to a person having ordinary skill in the art to which the claimed invention pertains. Patentability shall not be negated by the manner in which the invention was made.
Claim(s) 10-15 is/are rejected under 35 U.S.C. 103 as being unpatentable over Kues et al. as applied to claim 7 above, and further in view of Fischer et al.
Regarding claim 10, Kues teaches using the optical device including a program filter (PF2) to impose amplitude and phase mask and route the signal and idler photons to different paths. Kues does not specify the details of the optical device as recited in claim 10. Fischer teaches a device comprising: a linear series of N optical switches (five MZIs as illustrated in Fig. 2, between an input side near an optical source 10 and an output side near an output coupler 30, inside an optical shaper 20); N-1 pairs of waveguides (a pair of waveguides for each of five MZIs inside the shaper 20) wherein each pair of waveguides of the N-1 pairs of waveguides is disposed between a predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches and a sequential optical switch of the N optical switches to the predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches (each of the five MZIs is comprises a pair of waveguides); and an optical waveguide coupled to the output of the final optical switch of the N optical switches (an optical waveguide connecting a final MZI/ switch to the output coupler 30); wherein each pair of waveguides comprises: a waveguide (the five MZIs are formed in an inverted “U” shape, respective waveguides located on the inside of the “U” shape, which are of equal or shorter length of the pair of waveguides of the five MZIs) coupled from an output port of the associated predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches and an input port of the associated sequential optical switch of the N optical switches; and another waveguide (respective waveguides located on the outside of the U shape or having equal or longer length of the pair of waveguides of the five MZIs) from another output of the predetermined optical switch of the N optical switches and another input of the associated sequential optical switch of the N optical switches introducing a predetermined delay (as results of extra lengths of the outside waveguides of each of the pair of waveguides of the five MZIs) to optical signals propagating within the another waveguide relative to those optical signals propagating within the waveguide; the predetermined delays for the N-1 pair of waveguides are 2M∙T, where M=0,1…N-1 and T is a defined delay; and N is a positive integer greater than or equal to 3 (as stated in ¶[0033], where, for example, the first three delays of the first three pair of waveguides, i.e., N is 1 to 3, are Δη1, 2xΔτ1, and 4xΔτ1). The cascading MZIs also applies amplitude and phase controls as in Kues’ invention, and it would have been obvious to one having ordinary skill in the art, before the effective filing date of the claimed invention, to use Fischer’s system for arbitrary waveform generation from an optical input to shape the optical pulses generated in Kues’ invention, as a way to integrate temporal pulse shaping on-chip and on-the-fly as stated by Fischer.
Regarding claim 11, Fischer further suggest the optical waveguide supports four-wave mixing of the optical signals propagating within it (¶[0030]); regarding claim 12, Fischer further suggests the optical waveguide supports four-wave mixing of the optical signals propagating within it; and the linear series of N optical switches, the N-1 pairs of waveguides and optical waveguide are monolithically integrated (the five MZIs may be integrated on a common substrate, Fig. 5a); regarding claim 13, Fischer further suggests each optical switch of the linear series of N optical switches is controllable to at least a first switch state to couple the optical signals one of to or from the waveguide and a second switch state to couple the optical signals one of to or from the another waveguide (e.g., 0, where all light remains in one path, and 1, when all light couples over to another path, and the split-ratio of the pulse splitter is controlled using for example directional couplers with heater electrodes, ¶[0026]); and the linear series of N optical switches under appropriate control can establish propagation of the optical signals through a defined subset of the another waveguides of the N-1 another waveguides of the N-1 pairs of waveguides (i.e., allows light to travel from the input, through the five MZIs, to the output); regarding claim 14, Fischer further suggests the optical waveguide is a spiral waveguide (¶[0052]); regarding claim 15, Fischer further suggests each optical switch of the linear series of N optical switches is a Mach-Zehnder interferometer (as illustrated in Fig. 2 and stated in ¶[0046]). A particular advantage of this cascading Mach-Zehnder interferometers arrangement suggested by Fischer is that optical energy does leave the coupled waveguide system until the optical pulse reaches the last coupler. Hence, the device loss, and the energetic efficiency, is determined by the coupling coefficients of the last coupler in the system.
Conclusion
The prior art made of record and not relied upon is considered pertinent to applicant's disclosure. US11474413 discloses a spiral waveguide for four-wave mixing.
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/CHARLIE Y PENG/ Primary Examiner, Art Unit 2874
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