Accurate method for measuring the thermal coefficient of group birefringence of polarization-maintaining fibers

Zhenyang Ding; Zhuo Meng; X Steve Yao; Xiaojun Chen; Tiegen Liu; Mingliang Qin

doi:10.1364/OL.36.002173

Accurate method for measuring the thermal coefficient of group birefringence of polarization-maintaining fibers

Opt Lett. 2011 Jun 1;36(11):2173-5. doi: 10.1364/OL.36.002173.

Authors

Zhenyang Ding¹, Zhuo Meng, X Steve Yao, Xiaojun Chen, Tiegen Liu, Mingliang Qin

Affiliation

¹ Polarization Research Center, College of Precision Instrument & Opto-electronics Engineering and Key Laboratory of Opto-electronics Information and Technical Science (Tianjin University), Ministry of Education, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.

PMID: 21633486
DOI: 10.1364/OL.36.002173

Abstract

We present a method to accurately measure the group birefringence variation with temperature in high-birefringence polarization-maintaining (PM) fibers using a distributed polarization analyzer. By analyzing polarization cross-talk peaks purposely induced at both ends of a PM fiber, the temperature coefficient of group birefringence can be accurately obtained. We confirm the theoretical prediction that the group birefringence of PANDA and TIGER PM fibers decrease linearly with temperature from -40 °C to 80 °C, and find that the temperature coefficients are -5.93 × 10(-7) °C(-1) and -5.29 × 10(-7) °C(-1) for two types of PANDA fibers, and -5.36 × 10(-7) °C(-1) for a TIGER fiber.