ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 23 -- United States Patent no. 12,422,701, issued on Sept. 23, was assigned to Cisco Technology Inc. (San Jose, Calif.).
"Faraday rotator ball lens" was invented by Shawn X Wang (Carlsbad, Calif.), Steffen Gloeckner (San Diego) and Michael P. Mack (San Diego).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Embodiments here describe a Faraday rotator ball lens that can be used in an optical device to focus received light and prevent back reflections from reaching a light source. In one embodiment, the isolator ball lens includes an optic axis that should be aligned with the direction of the received light in order to rotate the light so that back reflections cannot reach the light source....