Spectral-domain measurement of phase modal birefringence in polarization-maintaining fiber

Abstract

Abstract:We report on a new and simple method for measuring the wavelength dependence of phase modal birefringence in a polarizationmaintaining fiber. The method is based on application of a lateral pointlike force on the fiber that causes strong coupling between polarization modes and utilizes their interference resolved as the channeled spectrum. The change of the phase retrieved from two recorded channeled spectra that are associated with the known displacement of coupling point is used to determine the phase modal birefringence as a function of wavelength. A windowed Fourier transform is applied to reconstruct precisely the phase change and the phase ambiguity is removed provided that we know the phase change of the spectral fringes at one specific wavelength. The measured wavelength dependence of phase modal birefringence is compared with that resulting from the group modal birefringence measurement.

Characterization of Brillouin Gratings in Optical Fibers and Their Applications

“…During the fabrication of the polarization-maintaining fibers, due to the non-uniformity of the materials and environmental condition change in fiber drawing process, it is inevitable to introduce birefringence variation along the fiber. Many methods have been proposed to measure the birefringence of polarization-maintaining fibers (Flavin et al, 2002;Hlubina et al, 2007;Kim et al, 2003;Olsson et al, 1998). However, these methods can only give the average birefringence of the test fibers, and can not characterize the birefringence variation along the fiber.…”

Magnetic Quasi-Phase Matching All-Fiber Isolator

“…We investigated three different types of fiber PBL measurement techniques: polarization modulation in the spectra of broadband light transmitted through the fiber with and without point stress [4], Rayleigh scattering of narrow-band light out the side of the fiber, and Faraday rotation of narrow-band light induced by passing the fiber through a small hole in a magnet that is translated along the fiber. The broadband point-stress measurement shows the most decisive result.…”

Distributed group birefringence measurement in a polarization-maintaining fiber using optical frequency-domain reflectometry

“…Many of them rely on measuring the transmission signals by manipulating the test fibers [1][2][3], modulating the optical phase or wavelength of the optical source, and using low coherence interferometric techniques [4][5][6][7]. The methods mentioned above can only give effective values contributed by the entire fiber under test owing to the transmission based measurement nature.…”