Polarisation-induced visibility limits in interferometric fibre-optic sensor arrays

Polarisation-induced fading is analysed in Mach-Zehnder-type interferometric fibre-optic sensor arrays. Given a sensor array configuration and the polarisation properties of individual elements, a procedure is presented to find an optimal input state of polarisation which maximises overall sensor visibility. It is shown that for both serial and parallel arrays with N sensor elements, the visibility of the worst-case sensor configuration can be maximised to a value of sin ( pi /2N).