Birefringence measurements of single-mode fibers using the polarization shuttle pulse technique

A novel and practical polarization shuttle pulse (PSP) technique has been developed to measure the intrinsic birefringence in short lengths of nominally circular-core low-birefringence single-mode fibers. By adding a linear polarizer, a Soleil-Babinet compensator, and a linear analyzer to the conventional shuttle-pulse arrangement, the length dependence of the phase delay (and hence the birefringence) can be measured nondestructively. An order-of-magnitude improvement in measurement repeatability over the conventional cut-back method has been achieved.