RIN-reduced light source for ultra-low noise interferometric fibre optic gyroscopes

Author

Hakimi, F. ; Moores, J.D.

Author_Institution

MIT Lincoln Lab., Lexington, MA, USA

Volume

49

Issue

3

fYear

2013

fDate

Jan. 31 2013

Firstpage

205

Lastpage

207

Abstract

Incoherent broadband light sources are used in interferometric fibre optic gyroscopes (IFOGs) to mitigate the deleterious effects of Kerr and polarisation nonreciprocity, and backscattering effects in gyroscopes. However, incoherent broadband sources suffer from excess noise or relative intensity noise (RIN), caused by the beating of different spectral components on the photodetector. Unless RIN noise is suppressed, IFOG performance cannot be improved once light on the photodetector exceeds one photon per coherence time (~~W~s). Demonstrated is a low RIN light source capable of significantly improving angle random walk of an IFOG by 12 dB.

Keywords

backscatter; fibre optic gyroscopes; light coherence; light interferometry; optical Kerr effect; optical fibre polarisation; optical noise; photodetectors; random processes; IFOG performance; Kerr nonreciprocity; RIN-reduced light source; angle random walk; backscattering effects; coherence time; deleterious effects; incoherent broadband light sources; incoherent broadband sources; photodetector; polarisation nonreciprocity; relative intensity noise; spectral components; ultralow noise interferometric fibre optic gyroscopes;

fLanguage

English

Journal_Title

Electronics Letters

Publisher

iet

ISSN

0013-5194

Type

jour

DOI

10.1049/el.2012.3371

Filename

6457573