Abstract

Direct measurement of the ultimate limit of the polarization cross talk of the birefringent fibers caused by anisotropic Rayleigh scattering (ARS) is presented theoretically and experimentally by using polarization optical time-domain reflectometry (POTDR). With POTDR, ARS appears as the bias existing in the backscattered power ratio between the cross-coupled and excited modes. A value twice that of the bias corresponds to the depolarization ratio representing the anisotropy of the fiber core material. The biases measured by birefringent polarization-maintaining fibers are all within 3% of the mean value 0.048.

© 1986 Optical Society of America

Polarization holding and anisotropic Rayleigh scattering in birefringent single-mode fibers

H. Barfuss and E. Brinkmeyer
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(4) 426-431 (1986)

Polarization cross talk and guided-mode coupling loss with broadband light sources in a single-polarization single-mode optical fiber

Chao-Xiang Shi and Takanori Okoshi
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 10(4) 583-589 (1993)

Polarization mode coupling with a broadband source in birefringent polarization-maintaining fibers

Kazumasa Takada, Katsunari Okamoto, and Juichi Noda
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 2(5) 753-758 (1985)

Measurement of spatial distribution of mode coupling in birefringent polarization-maintaining fiber with new detection scheme

K. Takada, J. Noda, and K. Okamoto
Opt. Lett. 11(10) 680-682 (1986)

Birefringence and polarization mode dispersion in a coil of a single-mode fiber

Nori Shibata, Makoto Tsubokawa, Masaharu Ohashi, Ken-ichi Kitayama, and Shigeyuki Seikai
J. Opt. Soc. Am. A 3(11) 1935-1940 (1986)