Patent 7978390 was granted and assigned to Hitachi on July, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The present invention relates to an optical modulator that generates quaternary amplitude modulated light without inter-symbol-interference by splitting input light into three optical paths, generating a continuous wave signal in a first optical path, generating binary phase modulated lights using a single drive MZ type optical phase modulator in second and third optical paths, and interfering them at in-phase and at field amplitude 1:a:b.