Complete dispersion characterization of microstructured optical fibers using windowed Fourier-transform spectral interferometry

Abstract

Dispersion measurements on a birefringent hollow-core (HC-800-02) and a solid-core (LMA-PM-5) photonic crystal fiber (PCF) are presented using a windowed Fourier-transform (WFT) spectral interferometric method. We investigate the optimal value of the spectral window function of the WFT method to reach the highest accuracy in the dispersion measurement. This requires the knowledge of the precise position of the polarization axes of the fibers. In order to determine the position of the polarization axes we have developed a method based on analyzing the WFT signals, which were obtained from a series of interferograms at different excitation ratios of the polarization modes of the PCFs.