Abstract

Thus far a beam splitter is a devide which has two input and two output ports.^[1] We generalize this concept to that of an N-port beam splitter, where N is both the number of input ports and of output ports. In contrast to conventional beam splitters such multiports are signified by availability of intenal phases, which afford additional experimental degrees of freedom. Most significant is the symmetric N-port defined as a device which, if any individual one of its input ports is fed by a state of unit amplitude, provides beams with equal amplitude N^−1/2 in each of its output ports.

© 1992 IQEC